Full Moon Rising
by kaattiiee
Summary: Sequel to Belonging. An even more dangerous Denman is still in the Gold Coast and is back on the trail of the girls and now their loved ones too. With one powerless mermaid the girls need all the help they can get fighting her off-but is it enough?*DONE*
1. In Hiding

**A/N**: Welcome to the sequel to "Belonging" everyone! Denman hasn't left the Gold Coast and has some dark suspicions; how will the girls deal with her being back on their trail? Enjoy, guys! Here is chapter 1 : ]

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_**One Month Later - Dr. Denman**_

The fire department told me that the fire had been an accident – that they hadn't seen any evidence of arson at the scene, and that it appeared to simply have really been from the freak electrical storm. Well, I know better. That's exactly what I've been expecting them to tell me – that there was no evidence of arson. There wouldn't be any evidence of arson if the fire were started by bolts of lightning. However, a freak electrical storm isn't the _only_ way that lightning bolts could strike my lab, and I know damn well that there was no storm coming our way any time soon.

Jerry had the gall to tell me that I should ease off of the mermaid project. He said that it was affecting me too much and I knew what that meant – he thinks I'm in too deep. He thinks that I'm beginning to lose it a little. I don't give a rat's ass if I'm losing it – I haven't come this close to going down in history just to give it up and move along. I'm not stupid, even if these girls seem to think that I am. The Dean girl had some dangerous abilities at her disposal. Faking their weakness while she was with me could have just been an act – I'm sure she held a lot back from me that I would have found out. But I'm beginning to think that this fire was a cover-up, I can feel it in my bones. I don't know if she managed it on her own or if she was helped, but I have a strong feeling that Cora Dean didn't die in that fire. I still have her contact information from when that little sneak was my intern, and so I've decided to drop by her last address just to see for myself if she is alive or dead.

I walked through the doors to the condo complex and glanced around – I used to live somewhere quite similar when I was in school; simple, basic, nothing fancy. I sighed impatiently and cut my blue eyes towards the elevator. I had no idea what number she lived at, or even what floor. That address that I have is merely the address of the complex itself. I glanced to the side slightly to see if anybody was watching me and started to make my way towards the first-floor homes. Then I heard a thickly accented voice.

"Excuse me – who are you? You are not one of my tenants."

I turned and saw a small but rather muscular middle-aged Asian man coming out from a door behind the front desk. His eyes were cut and he glared at me, examining me carefully. I pushed on my most charming smile and approached him.

"Oh, hello sir! I'm looking for a young woman by the name of Cora Dean. I'm told that she is one of your tenants – can you point me in the direction?"

"No, I cannot help you. You must leave – no unregistered guests." He said while still eyeing me strangely. Inside my head I threw a few choice obscenities in his direction but I smiled politely and took a business card out of my wallet and held it out to him.

"Oh all right, well if you see her just give me a call, yeah?" I said. His frown didn't budge and he didn't take my card.

"I cannot help you!"

I seethed a little but pursed my lips into a tight smile and nodded at him. I turned and with a flip of my straight blonde hair I was gone. I wouldn't cause a scene – this time. Not yet. I still have a little work to do before I start throwing a fit, but if things don't work out the way that I have planned there will be hell to pay – and I will _not_ be the one paying.

-

_**Emma**_

I was pushing the vacuum around the living room when I felt my phone going off in my back pocket. I flipped the vacuum off and slid my phone out of my pocket – it was Cora. I tucked my hair behind my ear and plopped down on the couch to make myself comfortable.

"Hi, Cora!"

"Hey, Emma…" I heard her voice through the phone. I knew it was Cora, but this didn't sound like Cora, Cora.

"Cora, what's up? You sound upset."

"Well, my landlord was just here. He was a little concerned, he came to tell me that some woman was here looking for me earlier. He said he didn't like the energy she was putting out – you know how Mr. Shen is. When I asked who the woman was, he said that she didn't give him a name but she was a tall blonde and that she tried to give him her card. When he said that, I knew that it wasn't you." She spoke slowly and sounded a little nervous. My face blanked and I felt my stomach turn to ice and drop.

"Denman."

"She knows, Emma. Or at least has a very good idea…" She spoke so carefully that it felt like she was worried that she would scare me. I was silent for a minute and my mind raced – Denman had come to Cora's looking for her and that meant that she knows, or at the very least _thinks_ that Cora wasn't killed in the fire. This was bad. This was very bad, but I quickly organized my thoughts and shook myself out of it.

"Okay, Cora, this isn't good. She knows where you are! This is what I need you to do: You need to pack right now and call Lewis – you're going to be staying with him for a while."

"Emma! What about you? The fact that she's still here means that the three of you are still at risk, too."

"We'll discuss it later. She knows you're a mermaid, Cora, but she has no _proof_ that the three of us still are. Just please, pack now and get out of there." I pressed further. I heard her groan over the phone, a groan similar to the ones I hear from Rikki almost every day.

"But _Emma_, you know what I _am_… I'm not going to be able to leave you three alone until…" She trailed off but I knew where she was going; she was still a Protector, and the fact that there was still danger meant she was still programmed to keep Cleo, Rikki and myself safe above everything else. I sighed quietly and gently cut her off.

"Try to ignore it, Cora, _for_ us. You'd be helping us by trying to hold it back. We need you to be extra careful until your powers come back, okay? We'll see the both of you tonight." I said it firmly, but I kept my voice calm. This was a bad, _bad_ situation but I didn't want her panicking over the three of us even though I knew it wasn't exactly something that she could control. We could handle ourselves and she knew it, but the Protector in her didn't know or care. She was quiet for a second before she replied.

"Okay, Emma. See you tonight."

"Be careful, Cora." I replied, and gently let my phone slip shut and out of my hand to rest on the couch cushion next to me. I let out a sigh of frustration and ran my hands over my face quickly. This war was far from over, but if this lunatic wants a fight then she's going to get a fight she'll never forget.

-

**A/N:** Denman is back on the trail! She's begun to let her obsession badly affect her sanity – How will the girls deal with her when this makes her even more dangerous? Reviews are beautiful, thanks so much for reading guys! Let me know what you think of the first chapter (I know it was short, they'll get longer like my other ones I promise! : D ) Take care everyone!


	2. Dead or Alive

**A/N**: Thank you so much for the great response to chapter 1, everybody! Here is chapter 2 I hope you continue to enjoy. In this chapter the mermaids make each other a promise, one mermaid gets threatened and one scientist takes matters into her own hands with poison. Who is she after first? Read on and enjoy! : D

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When Cora had called Lewis right after she had gotten off of the phone with Emma he had been at work. Much like Emma his first reaction had been for her to get out of her house as soon as humanly possible. Cora had felt bad about coming to stay with him because she felt like she'd be a little imposing, but she'd agreed and said that she would head over. But there was one problem: Lewis would be at work for at least four more hours.

"It's fine, Lewis, I can wait until you're done."

"No, I really think that you should be out of there now. It's getting dark out and I really wouldn't put it past this woman to try to come back again tonight."

"Okay, then I guess I'll come over now – is there someone there to let me in?"

"Yeah… but you're not walking over there by yourself. I'm gonna have Tyler come and get you."

"Lewis that's really not—"

"Don't argue with me on this one, please. I'm not risking her finding you again. Just stay put until Tyler comes, okay? For me?"

"All right… but you suck for that, you know." She grumbled quietly and sighed a little. This stupid Protector gene was a little annoying, especially since it was so easy to manipulate and her friends knew how to.

"Thank you, and I know. All right, I've got to get back to work. I'll see you when I get home, okay?"

"Okay. Are you sure this is okay? I really don't want to impose…"

"Cora, honey, you're not imposing. Tyler and Kyle love when you come over and they're hardly around anyway. And I don't mind, so it's fine. Don't even worry about it!"

"Okay, if you're positive. I'll let you get back to work! Don't work too hard!" He could hear her smile through the phone and it was contagious; before he knew it, he had a dumb grin on his face as well. The two of them had a joke about Lewis's job being too much work – he worked in a local pharmaceutical lab and while he was not the only person working there he seemed to be the only one who knew what they were doing. As a result he was stuck with the brunt of the work unfinished by his peers.

"Thanks, and believe me I don't think I'll try. I'll see you in a few hours – love you."

"Love you, too. Bye." Cora slid her phone shut and sighed, staring at the items she had strewn out on her bed to pack. A little over a month ago she had packed up her entire life into boxes and it felt like she had just gotten them all unpacked. Now she had to pack again, but at least it was to a less extreme extent. She head to her closet and pulled a duffel bag out and started piling her belongings into it and within a few minutes she was done. She dragged the bag out to the living room and dropped it on the floor and flopped down on the couch – now all she had to do was wait for Tyler.

*

Rikki had been the last of the mermaids to arrive at Lewis's apartment that night and when she did, things got underway.

"You've got to lay low for now, Cora." Rikki said, looking at the dark-haired girl from under her light feathery bangs.

"Not just me – you guys, too! This psycho is dangerous, and you all were the ones she was after originally, we can't forget about that… I know that you guys have your powers and everything and are more than equipped to defend yourselves but… I'm not going to be able to…" Cora trailed off a little and closed her eyes in frustration, "Well, you know."

"We know your Protector mode is in overdrive, and that you can't help it. But when it comes down to it, Emma is right – Denman hasn't seen any proof that the three of us are still mermaids and if she tries anything crazy then we'll have to protect ourselves, which we can do. Yeah, using our powers in front of her will give us away but at least we've got a way to fend her off." Cleo reasoned with Cora gently with a soft smile.

"Until we can figure out what to do about Denman, Cora you've got to stay out of sight. You're supposed to be dead, remember? That means that you go to class and come back, and that's it."

"I've got to go to work too, Emma. Thankfully I was able to keep both my jobs even though I missed a full week without telling anyone _why_. I can't risk losing my jobs again."

"Well all right, that's understandable I suppose. But at the restaurant it's not safe for you to stay a hostess, Cora. If anyone comes into the building you're the first person they'll see."

"I can manage, don't worry. I might not have powers, but I know what it feels like when Denman is around – I feel different. I can't explain it, but I know when she's nearby. And I'll stay out of sight but… the three of you. I won't ask you for anything else but please, _please_ do the same. Only out for work and class, at least until we know what to do with her? Please… promise me?" Cora sounded a little nervous and they could hear it in her voice. She hated asking for things and this was the first thing that she had asked them for. They knew how to manipulate her status as a Protector so well but this was important – she needed them to stay out of harm's way, because if they were in danger she was useless power-wise. This was something that scared Lewis and the girls a little: if Cora didn't have her powers to try to protect the girls, then she may try to resort to a more dangerous alternative way of 'helping.' And, while it didn't necessarily scare her Cora did know this too, however there was nothing she could do to change that – and ignoring it had proved useless. Emma, Rikki and Cleo glanced briefly at each other for a quiet moment. Being cooped up wasn't their idea of a great time, but if they were going to ask Cora to do it then they couldn't say no.

"We promise, Cora." Cleo smiled confidently and Rikki and Emma nodded in agreement. If she would do it for them, they would do it for her.

"Thank you." Cora sighed in relief and smiled, letting herself lean back onto the couch finally relaxing. Rikki was the first to stand up.

"Not a problem. Well I don't know about everyone else, but I've got a ton of reading to get done tonight. I'll let you guys start playing house, now." She smirked her typical Rikki smirk and winked playfully in Lewis and Cora's direction. Cleo and Emma stood up as well.

"Yeah, we should get going too. Keep us posted, Cora – you too, Lewis. We'll do the same, don't worry." Emma said with a smile in Cora's direction, figuring that it would help put her at ease. It seemed to work and with a wave the three girls turned and left, leaving Cora and Lewis on the couch. Only a second or two passed before she pushed herself up off of the couch and started to move around into the kitchen. Lewis blinked and raised an eyebrow.

"Where are you going?"

"Making dinner."

"What? You don't need to–" Lewis began but Cora cut him off with a devious smile and quickly kissed his cheek as she passed him on her way into the kitchen.

"Come on – Let the poor powerless mermaid help you out _somehow_." She grinned and slipped around the corner into the kitchen and out of sight. If they wanted to manipulate her Protector status, fine – but it didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun of her own. Lewis smirked and shook his head, standing up and following her into the kitchen as his smile grew.

"Oh, you're playing that card, are you? Those girls have corrupted you already."

-

_**Four Days Later – Emma**_

I wiped down the counter carefully at work and glanced at the clock. There were only a few minutes until closing time and the last of the customers were having their drinks made. There were only a few people here today; Thursdays tend to be slow days here at the JuiceNet, but Ash has every Thursday off from work so I am left in charge. Not that I mind or anything – I like being in charge even though the new girl doesn't quite have a handle on everything yet, but she'll get there. I turned around to stack the cups by size when I heard the bell from the door jingle and sighed. I hate when these young kids come in three minutes before closing but as long as it's not 8 o'clock yet, they still have the right to come in and buy their drinks. I push my professional smile onto my face and turned around, wiping my hands with a small towel and the second I look up I can feel my face fall. It's not a young kid – rather, a tall, sophisticated blonde.

"Good evening, Emma."

"Hello, Dr. Denman. What will you be having?" I asked politely; for all I care this woman could drink poison and choke on it, but I can't change my mannerisms and risk drawing attention to myself. Denman's smile was curt and cold and she leaned forward against the counter, tracing her fingers up against the small decorative flower vase we keep near the register. There was something different about her… something off. This woman isn't right in the head.

"Not a thing, Miss Gilbert. I simply came to relay a message." Her voice was as cool and icy as it's always been and I looked hard at her. Then I realized what was off about her – her eyes were still cold and blue, but there was something strange behind them now – something manic and fierce in her stare. I gulped slightly and my smile faltered.

"What's that?" I asked. I watched the unforgettable Cheshire cat grin spread across her face and my stomach turned. She leaned forward across the counter closer to me and lowered her voice.

"I am watching, Gilbert. And this time I'm not playing any cat and mouse games. I will take you all, and I will take you dead or alive – and this time, I prefer dead. You're easier to deal with that way." And with a swift turn she was gone leaving only the scent of her expensive perfume behind her. I dropped my hand towel on the counter and glared after her: I was in fight mode. If this woman wanted to threaten my girls and I then so be it. But there was no chance that she would be taking any of the four of us, dead or alive.

**Dr. Denman**

I had warned that little brat Gilbert fair and square. I know that she and the other two are still mermaids, I know it; as for my sneak of an ex-intern I know she's not dead. It's just a matter of getting my hands on her. These girls must think I'm stupid but they have no idea the extent of what I know about them; I know Cora must have somehow cheated the polygraph, I know that she must know Cleo, Rikki and Emma – I'm sure they're all covering for each other. I would be merciless this time – I didn't need them alive. In fact, I preferred to have them dead. But as for right now I had something else to take care of. I needed to get into the girls' comfort zone – I needed to invade their lives, to break them down and get them right where I want them and I knew just how to do it.

A few years ago when I had first caught up with the girls I had watched them before I made any moves. I had watched them together and separately and through my watching found a very interesting common link – an old colleague of mine, Max Thomas. Long ago when I was still in college Max had worked above me as a senior lab coordinator at the lab I had interned with. He was such a kind man back then, willing to help anybody and everybody until the lab started doing some animal testing he didn't agree with and he resigned. Well now the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place – Cleo, Emma and Rikki spent an awful lot of time with the old man and so did somebody else: the McCartney boy that had worked for me a few years ago, too; another friend of the girls. I would get to him too, but first things first. I know that Max must know a lot – if these kids come to him so often, he must know. And I know Max, I know that he likes to keep records of everything. Those records will be mine.

I approached his small house from the back and peeked through the windows. The lights were off and his car is gone from the driveway – Good. That means he won't be around. Hopefully he's out enjoying the last night he has. I smirked deviously when I realized the old man was probably just out buying groceries. I approached the back door and jiggled the handle a little. It was locked, so I pulled a pin out of my blonde hair and very quickly picked the lock. In another second I jimmied the door open and found myself standing in his kitchen. I scoffed at the quaintness of this little house as I made my way into what appeared to be Max's study. Making myself right at home I approached his shelves and started leafing through his books and files until finally I found exactly what I was looking for. Stowed away on the bottom shelf hidden behind a stack of books was a thick file. I opened it and grinned – this was perfect. In this file I had all the information I needed about the powers that all four mermaids possessed, proof that they were friends, and how their powers were manipulated. I also found that indeed Cora was still alive and grinned when I read the next sentence: current loss of abilities, Protector status behavior remains incredibly strong. Not knowing what a Protector was, I read further. My smile just grew and grew – this was perfect and I knew just how to get to these girls.

I slapped the file shut and stuffed it into my black leather purse and pulled out a small bottle marked with an X - cyanide. I pulled a cotton swab out of my bag as well and head over to the small silver platter that held a few glass shot glasses next to a bottle of whiskey. I opened the bottle and made a face at the smell of the poison and quickly dipped the cotton swab into the bottle and then rubbed the soaked tip along the inside of each shot glass coating them all thoroughly – just for good measure. Once I was done I quickly slipped everything back into my bag and left the house.

One down, five to go.

-

**A/N:** Denman is such a… Now she is going after the girls _and_ their loved ones. In the next chapter Cora and Lewis hear some disturbing news on the television, and we start to see a major change in Lewis. **Reviews are beautiful, please let me know what you think, I love to hear from you guys! **Take care everyone.


	3. Goodbye, Old Friend

**A/N**: Hey everyone! Thanks so much for all the feedback! Sad chapter ahead : ( This chapter contains a lot, a lot a LOT of information and I know that I kind of packed a lot into it and it may be a little confusing/overwhelming right now, but if you have a question about something you read in this chapter please leave it in a review or a PM and I will get back to you ASAP, promise! : D I'd be happy to explain whatever you want to know. In this chapter we lose a friend and make a disturbing discovery. Read and review, I hope you all enjoy chapter 3! Take care everyone.

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_**The Next Day – Lewis**_

It was the sound of a phone and the sound of a phone only that could wake me up this early on a Saturday so close to Christmas. I squinted over at the thermometer I kept outside my bedroom window and groaned – it's only 10 o' clock and it's already 30° C, which means it'll be 35 by noon… ugh. Thank God for air conditioning. I rolled over briefly and saw that Cora wasn't in bed anymore and then I smelled pancakes and smiled as I reached for my phone. This girl was going to spoil me…and my roommates, who were more than thrilled for food other than EasyMac. I flipped my phone open and wiped my hand down my face with my free hand.

"Hello?"

"Yes, I'm looking for a Lewis McCartney?" The voice said. The man on the other end didn't sound familiar and I checked the number quickly – I didn't recognize that, either.

"You've got him."

"Hello Mr. McCartney, my name is Burgess Monroe of the Monroe & Cleaver law firm. I understand that you are a close friend of my client, Max Thomas?"

"…Yeah, what's this about?" I froze a little – why was Max's lawyer calling me?

"I see. Well I am sorry that the nature of this call isn't a happy one, but… Max passed away last night in his sleep at his home." I felt my heart stop beating for a second. Had I heard this man correctly? This had to be one of my friends making a stupid joke.

"_Excuse_ me?"

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. McCartney. The reason why I've called is to inform you that—" He started to talk again but I pushed myself up in bed and shook my head.

"How?! How did this happen?" I didn't realize how loud my voice must have been and a second later I saw Cora appear at the doorway out of the corner of my eye.

"It appears to be old age. Mr. McCartney, you may have already been aware of this but Max Thomas has included you in his will and you will be asked to attend the reading of the will tomorrow afternoon at 4p.m. Do you need the address of the firm?" He asked. I was barely hearing him at this point. I had felt my entire face go blank a while ago and now I was beginning to feel numb.

"No."

"Okay, then I will be seeing you tomorrow at 4. Once again, I'm sorry for your loss. Take care." He said. I couldn't even respond. I couldn't even shut my phone – I just put it down and sat still. Max was dead? He had died in his _sleep_?! How could this have happened? Max was old but he wasn't _that_ old, and he was as strong as an ox and healthier than most people my age. And now he was _gone_? Something was wrong here, so wrong it felt like it was suffocating me. Healthy people don't just _die_. I felt the mattress shift a little and realized that Cora had sat down with me. She didn't know what was said and I had no idea what my face looked like but after spending almost 6 months around her, I know that she gets pain – usually in her stomach – when people around her are upset or uncomfortable. I picked my head up to look at her and from the look on her face, I could tell that she was feeling it now.

"It's Max, Cora. He's dead."

-

_**Three Days Later – Cora**_

I stood at Lewis's side and stared down at the black casket as it was lowered into the ground. It's been almost three years since I've been to a funeral – the last one was Mattie's. I felt Lewis grip my hand a little tighter and I squeezed it slightly and wiped the tears off of my face with my free hand. I knew this was hard for him. Max was like an uncle to Lewis, and even as close as I had been to the old man in the time I'd spent in Australia so far I was nowhere near as close to him as Lewis was. In the past few days he's been so quiet… I know he's been trying to mask how upset he is because he knows that I can feel it, but I don't want him to have to hide it. What's worse than the pain is the knowing that if I still had my powers, there's a chance I would have had a vision of the girls at the funeral; I could have been able to keep Max from dying, just like I should have kept Mattie from dying.

I sighed and glanced up at Lewis. His face is blank – it's been blank for days now, but there were definite hints of rage in his face. His eyes were cut a little more angrily than sadly, his forehead was creased. I squeezed his hand a little and stood closer to him. I know he's hurting, and especially because we know that there is something very strange about Max's death. We know that this wasn't normal – Max was healthy, he was strong. There was no logical reason that he would have died, but everyone had just assumed that because of his age that he had just passed away in his sleep of old age. Nobody questioned it – except for us. I looked to my left at Rikki who was standing at my other side with Zane. Her face was screwed up in a look that I had seen on her face before. She was sad, but there was absolutely suspicion on her face. No one wanted to talk too much about it just yet because right now everyone is still mourning for Max. But after Emma told us about Denman's visit to the Juicenet the other day we knew that something was very wrong. And we have a pretty decent reason to believe that Denman is behind this.

The other guests at the funeral around us had started to leave and after a while it was just Cleo, Emma, Rikki, Lewis, Nate, Zane, Ash and I standing around the open grave. I saw Cleo nudge Nate and Emma who were on either side of her and nod towards us. They all began to walk back towards the cars except for Nate who came towards us and put his hand on Lewis's shoulder.

"We're going to head back now, mate. I'm so sorry about this." He said sincerely, and then returned to the group and Lewis and I were left alone. I knew that Cleo had wanted to give Lewis his time alone at the grave; she knew just as well as I did, if not better, how hard this was for him. I pulled away from him a little and looked up at his face.

"I should go with them…" I started, but Lewis cut me off and grabbed my hand again.

"—Don't leave. Please." He said. I looked up at his face and the look in his eyes killed me – this really was hurting him. The pain in my stomach was throbbing a little but he made it easy to ignore. I nodded and stayed in my spot and in another second I felt his arms lock around me and sighed. I had come to Australia with the intent of never letting these people feel the kind of pain of loss that I've been through; I think everything is okay, my powers go away and then _this_ crap happens. Without my powers I feel so useless to the people around me that I love. I felt my stomach tighten and throb under my ribcage and squeezed Lewis gently – the pain wavers like this when I know he's trying to hold it back for my sake, and I'm trying to just let it happen for _his_ sake. I bit my lip and resolved myself to something: I didn't have to be useless. I will never let Lewis or any of the girls feel this kind of pain again, no matter what I have to do. _No matter what._

_**Later That Day – Lewis**_

It felt weird to be in Max's house without him here. I was so used to walking in and seeing him leaning back in his recliner in his den thumbing through a fishing magazine. It was going to take a while for it to sink in that he's really gone, but I've got something to take care of first. I know that Max didn't die of old age, I know it. Something had happened to him and I needed to find out what that something was.

When I had gone to the reading of Max's will I had found out that he had left me all of his science equipment and research files, books and charts. To anyone else this probably sounded lame but there's nothing in the world that I think could have been a better gift. The fact that he trusts me with all of this stuff means a lot, and I remember months ago when he had talking about writing his will that he had mentioned me carrying on the legacy of keeping the mermaid secret. Well, I planned on doing just that even though it would be weird to carry it on without him.

I sighed and wandered into the den. I saw the set of shot glasses I had bought him for Christmas around this time last year and smiled. Then I realized that one was missing and there were only three laid out; the other was probably on his bedside table where it always was when he took his drink to bed. I don't know what possessed me to want to pick one of them up but for some reason I just felt the need to hold one. I reached down and picked one up and turned it in my hand, smiling a little. They had little fish carved into the glass which is why I picked this set – I dunno, I thought it was kinda nice and something that Max would appreciate. He loved them, he told me he used them every night with his bedtime drink. Then I smelled something strange – something that smelled just a little bit like almonds. I sniffed the shot glass I was holding and immediately wrinkled my nose at the almond medicinal scent. My stomach froze a little and I set the glass down. I've smelled this before. I reached for the bottle of whiskey that was sitting along with the glasses and popped the top off and sniffed at the mouth of the bottle and smelled nothing but the whiskey. Picking up the shot glass I had been holding as well as the other two I quickly sniffed each one again and was met with the same strong smell of almonds in each one. My adrenaline started to rush – there was only one thing that I knew that smelled like this, and that was cyanide. Max had been poisoned. I knew that something strange had happened, I knew that Max was too strong to just die of old age. This was deliberate and I didn't need three guesses to know who had done this to him.

I started pouring through Max's files on his shelf looking for the file that we kept as well hidden as we had thought we had to. The second I reached the bottom shelf I knew it had been tampered with; there were a few books pulled out of place and I felt my chest start to burn at what I saw next. The file containing the information Max and I had compiled about Cora, Emma, Rikki and Cleo was gone. I was fuming. Now I had proof, solid proof that this had been Linda Denman. She killed Max. She poisoned him, stole the file about the girls and God knew what she was going to do with that file – hell, she could do _anything_! Shit, this is really bad. That file has any information anyone could ever want about these girls' powers… and then something dawned on me – or lack of powers. Denman now knows that not only is Cora alive, but she also knows that now my girlfriend is running around powerless. I clenched my fists hard and felt my teeth grind together a little. I was sick and tired of people trying to take advantage of me and the people I care about. I'm not the same scrawny dork I was in high school and I'm not going to stand for this shit anymore. These girls aren't science project, they're human beings that deserve to be left alone and they've gone through so much crap that I can't even begin to understand. I groaned and shut my eyes and thought about the scars on Cora's tail from her time in Denman's lab and just felt myself get even more pissed off. Even the act of getting pissed off made me pissed off because I know that it hurts her when people are around her are upset or hurt – it helps alleviate the mental pain, if only slightly, of whoever is upset and the physical pain of whoever is injured.

I don't know what the hell kind of unbalanced, unfair mermaid forces were working in the universe right now but I do know that that Protector gene of hers was dangerously strong, and the Defender gene in Cleo, Emma and Rikki had grown much stronger when they and Cora became friends – to include her. I don't know what Denman has up her sleeve this time but this woman has lost it and gone right off the deep end – _murder_?! There was nowhere worse she could go from there, which led me to believe that she was probably just going to keep at it. I groaned and grabbed the key and head out the front door making sure to lock it behind me. I had to tell the girls what I had found out – what I had proven.

_**Meanwhile – Cora**_

I know I'm only supposed to go to work, class, and then straight back to Lewis's apartment but today after class I realized that I had done something kiiiiiiiinda stupid. I was sitting down in the living room to start wrapping presents only to realize that I'd left everyone's present in the hallway closet back at my condo.

'_Nice one, Cora. Kinda forgot it was Christmas there for a second, did ya?'_ I rolled my eyes at myself and fumbled in my purse trying to find the key to my condo which was, of course, all the way at the bottom. I couldn't help forgetting it was the Christmas holiday. I was used to much cooler weather and some snow although in Northern California we don't get a ton – but enough for my liking. It was only a few days off until Christmas and I was wearing the shorts and t-shirt that I had changed into after Max's funeral. This whole reversal of seasons thing would take some getting used to…

I finally pulled my key out and stuffed it into the lock of the home I haven't seen in about a week, shoved the door open and flipped on the lights. When I picked my head up I immediately froze and dropped my keys on the floor.

-

**A/N**: Let the cliffhangers begin! In the next chapter we find out what/who is in Cora's condo. Who does Denman go after next now that she's playing dirty? The answer may surprise you. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! **Review please, again I love hearing from you guys!** : D Chapter 4 coming soon, take care everyone.


	4. A Clean Shot

**A/N**: What does Cora find in her apartment? Lewis has a plan – what is it, and does anybody get hurt? Does it even work at all? Find out! Read and review, guys! I hope you enjoy it! OH! And just a reminder, this story is a SEQUEL to "Belonging" so I highly suggest reading that one first so that this makes a little more sense : D Enjoy, everyone! And big thanks to Paradox Tremors for helping me with my STUPID CONSCIENCE about this chapter, haha.

-

_**Cora**_

When I picked my head up I immediately froze and dropped my keys on the floor. My entire condo was a wreck. Drawers were pulled out everywhere, all of my stuff was strewn out all over the floor: kitchen utensils, my clothes, broken dishes, shoes, knick-knacks… everything had been torn out of its place and was now somewhere else. Someone had been here looking for something – what, I don't know. Who, I do know. This had to be Denman, there was nobody else it could be. I let my eyes rest on the broken sliding glass door that led into my apartment in the living room from outside and my face blanked. She had broken in. She had come back, and she'd _broken into my house_. That wasn't careful, discreet or clean – she must really have lost her damn mind. I felt my stomach flip a little. I couldn't help but be a little bit nervous – what had she been looking for? What had she found?! I started going through my things to see if anything was missing and found the biggest shock when I got to my bedroom. My vanity mirror was smashed, and the pictures that I had stuck in the molding of them were strewn out on my vanity table: one of my whole family, one of Mattie and I right before she died, one of my dad and I at my middle school graduation… then I noticed it. The photo of Lewis and I was gone. Emma had taken it of us at the restaurant when we had all gone out for her birthday dinner. I dug around in the mess of broken glass and cosmetics – maybe she had just knocked it over onto the floor? I flipped the objects through my hands wildly and came up with nothing. It was gone. She had taken it. My stomach lurched again and I was suddenly very nauseous. I staggered out of my bedroom and across the hall into the bathroom which was also destroyed and barely had time to lift the toilet seat up before I was losing my breakfast. After a while I managed to slump down against the sink and covered my face with my hands. I stuffed one of my hands into my pocket and pulled my phone out and quickly dialed Lewis's number. Every ring just made me more and more nervous, but I was so relieved when I heard his voice pick up on the other end.

"Cora, what's up?"

"Thank God. Lewis, are you all right?" I asked. I was still a little shaken up from throwing up but he didn't sound like he was being tortured. Even so I needed to hear it from him.

"I'm fine sweetie, I'm over at Max's place. What's going on; is everything all right on your end? You sound upset."

"Uhh… not quite. Are you're sure you're okay? You haven't seen Denman, have you?"

"No, but she _was_ here," I heard him sigh; he sounded bitter, "She killed him, Cora. It was her. She poisoned him." I froze after I pulled myself off of the floor and put the toilet seat down, sitting down on it. It had been Denman. She wasn't playing games anymore and she'd gone after a sweet, innocent old man. I felt my eyes start to water again but held back from crying and reached up to touch the locket that he'd made for me a little over a month ago. I shut my eyes and sighed. This was ugly and it was getting uglier by the second.

"How did you find out?"

"She laced his shot glasses with cyanide. You can still smell it on the glasses, that little _bitch_…" He grumbled and I heard things being shuffled around on his end, "She also stole some things but I'll explain that later to you and the girls. Tell me what's going on, where are you?"

"I… went home to pick up the Christmas presents. She was here, Lewis. She broke in, she took the picture of you and I from Emma's party, destroyed the place and left. She knows that you and I are together, and I'm afraid that she's going to come after you next… because of me." I said slowly. I heard silence on the other end for a few seconds before Lewis spoke. The silence was as good as words – he's quiet when he's mad.

"Are you still over there now?"

"Yes."

"Please do me a favor… Please stay put until I get there, okay? I'm coming for you."

"But Lewis what if she tries to come after you?! I can't let you get hurt because you're with me… I can't let her get to you."

"I promise, I _will_ be there in 10 minutes; nothing is gonna happen to me. You won't lose me that easily – I'll see you in 10 minutes. I love you." And he hung up. I sighed and groaned and cursed the stupid Protector gene. I wanted to go to him even if I was useless power-wise because I know that Denman will be looking for him, but he asked me to stay here and so I have to stay here. I sighed again and reached for the door, pulling it closed and locking it and drew my knees up to my chest and hoped with everything I had in me that he _would_ be here in 10 minutes. I needed to find some way to get around this thing _soon_.

-

_**The Next Morning – Lewis**_

I opened my eyes and squinted at the brightness in my bedroom. I pushed myself up a little but stopped when I felt the weight on my chest and smirked down at Cora who was still asleep, curled up on her side with her head and one of her arms sprawled across my chest. I pushed some of the hair out of her neck and thought back to last night; we had our first fight, but I guess you could say it ended well. I know she panics – I know she wants me to be safe more than anything, and I want the same for her. I was a little heated when I found out that that psychopath had broken into her house and ruined it – I was stunned when I got there and saw that some things were literally ripped apart, which just made me more mad. She'd kept me pretty calm by not letting go of my hand until we got back my apartment but I still had a lot that I had to tell her about what information Denman had; about the file she'd stolen and the information she possessed about each of the mermaids.

Last night we'd sat down to talk about what was going on and Cora's Protector logic started kicking in – I _hate_ that logic, and this is why. She was incredibly upset that Denman had stolen the picture of both of us and had a bad feeling that it meant that Denman was going to try to come after me. If that happened, she said that it would be because of her – because Denman wanted to get to her by going through me. She also said that if that happened, she had no way to keep me safe _with her powers_. This made my chest feel like it had turned into solid ice – that meant if it came to it, she'd be doing something else _way more dangerous_ to try to keep me safe. I told her that if it came to that I didn't want her to do anything crazy; I wanted her to stay out of Denman's way. She'd said she wouldn't be able to. Then I asked her something that I already knew the answer to.

"Are you saying that if this woman comes after me that you're going to get yourself killed just to get me away from her?! No hesitating about it, you're just going to do it?!"

"_Yes_, Lewis! I'm not going to lose you, too!"

I kind of lost it after that. We fought back and forth for at least an hour. Cora wouldn't change her answer no matter how many times I said that I didn't want her to die for me. She wouldn't hear it when I told her that I wanted her alive and that I'd rather be killed than have her die in my place, because I had meant it when I said it and she knew that. She said that she loved me and she couldn't lose me – that no one else would have to die on her account. Then she had started looking for her house keys and got up off the couch; she was really flustered at this point and I knew it, I could see it and hear it in her voice. That was the most dangerous thing for her to be – this was when she tended to be the most reckless. But there was no way I would let her go off on her own. Not with a mad scientist willing to burn everything in her path to find her. I had stood up with her and taken her house keys out of her hand.

"You can't go back there, Cora!" I had screamed. She was still flustered. It didn't even seem to faze her that she didn't have her keys anymore.

"Then I'll go somewhere else." She said, but she was still heading for the door. I had groaned and stormed after her and grabbed her arm gently to stop her from walking.

"Please don't go out there."

"Why?" She asked. I stared down into her brown eyes and the look in them could have killed me. This Protector thing was tearing her apart, I could see it. And other people telling her what they did and didn't want certainly wasn't helping her at all. But I couldn't let it send her into the line of fire like this.

"Because I can't lose you, either." I said, my voice still louder than I intended. She stared up at me hard for a moment and for a second I couldn't tell if she was about to scream or burst into tears but within a split second I felt her arms wrap around my neck and her lips pressed firmly up against mine. I have never, ever been kissed like that before in my _life_ – not that I complained, it was incredible. I felt one of my hands go up under the back of her hair and kissed her back and held onto her gently with my free hand as we backed against the still closed front door of my apartment. I don't know what came over me but in another second I had carefully lifted her up and was carrying her down the hall towards my room.

I glanced at my alarm clock – it was only 10 o' clock, but today was Christmas Eve and I was bringing Cora to my mom's house for our yearly Christmas Eve family get together. Not a ton of fun, at least not for me but mom has been asking me to bring Cora around since we first met six months ago. I was a little nervous that Cora would get kind of overwhelmed tonight – I have a pretty big family and she'd be meeting them all at once. I have no doubts that they'll like her, but for someone that never thought they'd be meeting a boyfriend's family the thought is probably a little scary. Hell, I'd be scared. But she's been taking it in stride so far and hasn't seemed too nervous about it, even though I know she still felt like she was a walking time bomb that I'd be bringing over to my family. Also… there is always the chance of her getting wet which _I_ was nervous about since she was insisting on helping mom in the kitchen, but I had a good feeling about today. With 5 years of being a mermaid under her belt and working in a restaurant all that time, she was pretty quick about hiding or drying herself off right away if water got on her in public. Plus, I know she loves kids and I've got some young cousins and two nephews that I have a feeling she'll absolutely love.

I rolled my head back onto the pillow and rubbed her back protectively while she slept. I hoped she would be all right with my family, but my mind was also wandering somewhere else. I had come up with a plan after we went to sleep that would not only make me feel less helpless in keeping Denman from touching her or any of our friends, but one that may also trigger Cora's powers and bring them back. I know she'll panic when she hears my idea, even though I know that she trusts me; it's dangerous but I've been thinking about it since we stopped fighting last night. This just might work, but I needed Zane and Rikki's help. I took my hand off of Cora's stomach and started reaching around for my phone, finding it under my pillow and flipping it open. I shot a quick text to Zane.

'Meet me the shooting range at 2. Bring Rikki!' Only about a minute passed before I got a reply.

'Wtf man – why?'

'I have an idea – will explain when we get there.'

'Ok I trust you. See you at 2.'

-

_**Later That Day – Rikki**_

When we talked about the shooting range, we were never talking about the real shooting range – the official one where the hunters and bored wife-beaters hung out. Where we were going was a place that we come to hang out sometimes – just a couple of foam targets, a cheap shelf with empty glass bottles and an old ripped up couch to sit on. Nothing fancy but it was out of the way and we were nice and hidden out here which was good because I think I have a good idea as to why Lewis asked Zane to drag me along on Christmas Eve. Not that I minded. I'd rather be here than over at dad's as he tried was still trying to "make things work" with mom. I'll deal with _that_ train-wreck tomorrow.

"Thanks for coming, guys," Lewis stood behind the crappy couch and Cora sat on the arm of it and tied her hair back. I didn't blame her – it was pretty warm today. She's probably used to being freezing on Christmas Eve, "I think that I've come up with a way we can get Cora's powers back. And, even more than that, I think that this might help balance out the Protector overdrive by bringing back certain Defender instincts, but we need your help."

"Really?" I said – this was major. It's been over a month since her powers disappeared and we were all starting to worry they might be gone for good. So far nobody had had any ideas when it came to getting them back, but now he was telling us not only might she get them back but it would keep this Protector-overdrive from messing with her so damn much? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me, "What can we do?"

"I'm glad you asked, Rikki. Well Zane, buddy, I'm gonna need you to be a _threat_ today. Rikki… I need your… mermaidness, for lack of a better term."

I smirked a little when Lewis mentioned Zane being a threat. Zane didn't see me because he had sheepishly put his head down by now. I know he still feels pretty bad for hitting Cora and I know that if he wanted to he could do some serious damage to a person. I knew she was still a little uncomfortable around Zane but I didn't blame the girl – that would take some time. But I also knew that if_ I _smacked this boy in the side of his head he wouldn't step out of line. The whole idea of it made me want to laugh a little but I knew this was serious so I held it in – for once. I'm getting pretty good at considering other peoples' feelings these days, I'm proud of myself.

"No problem, Lewis. Just let me know what you need me to do." I heard Zane say as he tried to stand up a little straighter. I smiled and rested my hand on the middle of his back. He might have been a little bit of a screw-up, but he was still _my_ screw-up.

"All right, Zane right now what you and I need to do is take 5 shots. Cora, you just need to watch us but watch us both really, really carefully." Lewis instructed. I was curious, but this kid's logic usually made sense so I decided to go with it and sat on the couch right below Cora. I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye and we both watched as the boys loaded up and fired off 5 shots at their bullseye targets about 10 meters away. I didn't flinch at the sound anymore; dad has been bringing me here since I was really little. The only difference is that these days with my powers, I didn't need to pull the trigger in order to fire a gun. _That_ was pretty sweet. I noticed Cora jump a little at the noise and looked up at her. Her face doesn't look too worried, it just looks like she's concentrating. Then I realized what she was looking at – how accurate their shots were. I looked too and I raised my eyebrows when I saw Lewis's target. I knew Zane was a pretty good shot, but only one out of the five rounds that Lewis had shot had hit outside the center circle and even _that_ one was only one ring away from it.

"_Christ_, McCartney, who taught _you_ how to shoot?! I know you play a lot of _Call of Duty_ but yikes."

"Nah. We play a lot of _Halo_," I heard Cora say from above me and I looked up at her. She was smirking a little but kept watching, "Nothing beats _Halo 3_ as far as first-person-shooters go. As far as the XBOX 360 goes anyway. _Half-Life_ is a good one too, nothing like getting back the crappy graphics of the late 90's." I smiled a little and rolled my eyes.

"God, you're even worse than he is." I said jokingly. I saw her smile spread further.

"I know."

Lewis and Zane walked back over to us and I heard Lewis chuckle at me.

"I'll take that as a compliment, Rikki."

"That's all you're getting for Christmas." I said and gave him my sweetest, corniest Cheshire cat grin. He smirked and ignored me; he knew I was only messing with him.

"All right, now is where things get interesting. Cora, _that_-" he gestured back at the targets, "-was so that you know that Zane and I don't plan on missing." He said. I looked up at her just in time to see her dark eyes bulge a little.

"Plan on missing what?" She asked. The nervous look was back. Lewis reached out for her hand and she gave it to him and he pulled her up off of the arm of the couch and walked a few feet with her to the middle of the open space in front of the targets.

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do." She replied. I watched Lewis's dorky smile come back.

"Okay. All I need you to do is react. I trust you – this will work," He reassured her. I watched him whisper something to her then kiss her cheek, and the he took a few steps away from her, raised his hand and waved Zane over, "Okay Zane. You stand over here-" I watched him arrange Zane in place and then he took several steps back until he was a few yards away from Zane, putting Cora between them but a few feet out of the line of fire. I noticed Lewis had put his gun away and raised my eyebrows again. Was this going where I thought this was going? "Cora, I need you to not move no matter what. Do _not_ move, just react." Yup, it was. I saw her eyes bulge a little and she opened her mouth to protest but no words came out. I knew this was the part of being a Protector that she hated – the having to obey us part. I would hate that, too, "Okay, Zane. One shot."

"Lewis, are you sure about this?" I heard Zane ask. He looks nervous too.

"Yes, I'm very sure. Count of three, Zane." He said. Zane blinked a little and shook his head slightly to prepare himself. This was absolutely crazy, but Lewis was brilliant and we were both sure he knew what he was doing. Zane cocked the gun and raised his arm straight in front of him and closed one eye in careful concentration.

"One… two… THREE." The gun fired and a few things happened in what felt like slow motion. I felt my own jaw drop open slightly. I looked up and saw that Cora had jumped a little and held her hand over her mouth and shut her eyes. I saw Zane standing still, still holding the now smoking revolver out in front of him. Then I saw Lewis. His eyes were closed too, but he was standing up straight and perfectly still. I made a quick scan of his body – no blood. It had definitely been a shot that I had heard, that was no blank. Then I traced through the space between Lewis and Zane and about half-way between them, right in front of where Cora stood, I saw a tiny glint of copper shining in the sun. The bullet hung in the air between them, completely suspended. I watched Lewis open his eyes first and a smile immediately plastered itself onto his face. Then I saw Cora's eyes open and the second they did the bullet dropped into the dusty dirt, useless. I couldn't believe it – it had worked. Lewis McCartney's most insane plan yet had worked. I watched Lewis hurry over to where she stood frozen in place a few feet from him and hugged her hard.

"You did it! Cora I knew you'd be able to stop it and you did!" He said excitedly. Her smile was happy was well but you could tell that she was still busy trying to get her heart to settle back down in her chest – or to even start beating again.

"Never… ever… _ever_ do that…" She trailed off and I saw him smile again.

"I promise, I'll never do that to you again," He grinned and squeezed her hand and led her back over to the couch and sat her next to me. As soon as she sat down I immediately felt my own heartbeat slow back down to a normal pace and felt calmer. This was nice and everything since I hated feeling jumpy so this was one part of her Protector skills that didn't worry me too badly, but Lewis _had_ told us that the ability to make us feel better meant that she took on the discomfort which kinda sucked. I gave her my most reassuring smile and gave her a hug.

"You did fine, Cora." I promised. She smiled a little and shut her eyes briefly and sighed.

"Thanks, Rikki." She said. I felt the cushions shift and Lewis sat down on the other side of her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Tell me when you're ready to go again sweetie, I have one more test."

"Sure. Just give me a minute and I'll be good to go." She smiled warmly at him and he got up and walked over to Zane again.

-

A few minutes passed and Cora stood up off o the couch we were sitting on and smoothed her plain white shirt and long khaki shorts down. It looked like she was feeling back to normal which was always good.

"All right, let's do this. What do you need me to do now, Lewis?" She asked and I saw her tilt her head to the side curiously. I noticed Lewis's smile falter a little bit but he came over to us with Zane following close behind him. Then I saw him gesture to me. I raised my eyebrow curiously and stood up. What did he need me for? Then I realized he had asked me to come for a reason. He pulled me aside a few yards away to where they couldn't hear us, leaving Cora alone with Zane. I glanced past him back at them and saw her shift a little bit away from Zane, but Lewis put his hands on my shoulders to focus my attention.

"Rikki. This is really, really important. This is the test that I'm hoping will even Cora back into some Defender tendencies. I'm going to have Zane fire one shot at her. This is incredibly important, Rikki – I picked Zane for a reason, and not just because he's a good shot. Even though she knows he won't do anything and that he's important to you, she's still a little afraid of him…"

"You don't say?" I muttered sarcastically, raising my eyebrows and crossing my arms. He sighed and started again.

"Exactly. Rikki I know you don't want her to get hurt any more than I do, so I need you to really, really focus on the fact that you don't want her to get shot. She'll be able to feel it. I know it's drastic, but that's exactly why I think it has a chance of working. This Protector thing is tearing her apart, Rikki, we really need to try to get her back into Defender mode – at least a little bit. You're going to have to use every ounce of focus that you have. If she feels like her being shot will negatively affect you and I and even _Zane_, that will override the Protector gene and hopefully she'll be able to stop the bullet from hitting herself as well."

I paused and thought about it for a second – this _was_ drastic, but I knew that if anything happened to her… well, what happened to Lewis as a result wouldn't be pretty. It wouldn't be pretty for any of us. So, I had to use my 'mermaidness' as he put it to keep Cora from letting herself get hurt – because usually, her powers only work in one direction and she can't help herself with them. This was absolutely crazy but the logic, technically, was there. All right. I could do this, even though this was a _huge friggin' responsibility_!

"I can do this, Lewis. I swear to you." I said. He was quiet for a second and stared hard at me and finally nodded. We head back over to where Cora and Zane were standing. Lewis reached for Cora's hand and stood her a few yards away from Zane where he had stood a few minutes ago for the first "shooting." I stood firmly in my spot and got a head start on focusing. Every ounce of my concentration would go into letting this girl feel that her dying would hurt us. I started focusing as I watched Lewis lean down and whisper something to Cora again, probably what he had just told me. I saw her hands clench nervously a little but her face stayed completely focused and she looked up at him seriously and nodded. He squeezed her hand one more time and moved only a few feet away from her. He waved me over and I came and stood behind Zane, who was ready with his gun again. I knew how guilty this made him feel, seeing as he's already threatened her with this exact gun before, but the more nervous she was the better – it would help me to convince her to stop that bullet.

"On three again, Zane." I heard Lewis say, but didn't break my concentration as I rested my hand on Zane's back between his shoulders again. I felt him breathe in deeply to brace himself and he nodded.

"One…"

I focused hard. I pushed everything else out of my head.

"Two…"

I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that I was seeing spots. This had to work – the test was drastic but it had to be real in order to get real results. I felt my hand shake a little bit and bit my lip as I concentrated harder.

"THREE." Another shot rang out. I felt like this one echoed absolutely forever, and my heart thudded out of my chest.

-

**A/N**: Cliffhangerrr. Again. Haha! : D What happens to Cora? Does anything go wrong at Lewis's mom's house? How will Denman try to ruin Christmas, and who will she go after next? Find out in the next chapters! Review my lovelies, tell me what you think!


	5. Count of Three

**A/N**: The gang finishes their round of testing – is anyone hurt? What has Denman been up to and is she planning on ruining the holiday? Who will she go after? Find out! Read and enjoy my lovely readers : ] Hope you enjoy it! 27 reviews for chapter 6, take care everybody!

-

_**Rikki**_

"On three again, Zane." I heard Lewis say, but didn't break my concentration as I rested my hand on Zane's back between his shoulders again. I felt him breathe in deeply to brace himself and he nodded.

"One…"

I focused hard. I pushed everything else out of my head.

"Two…"

I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that I was seeing spots. This had to work – the test was drastic but it had to be real in order to get real results. I felt my hand shake a little bit and bit my lip as I concentrated harder.

"THREE." Another shot rang out. I felt like this one echoed absolutely forever, and my heart thudded out of my chest. My eyes did close with the sound this time and I really didn't want to open them this time, but I had to. I would have had to eventually anyway even though I really, really didn't want to this time around. I peeled my eyes open one at a time and squinted a little, still not really wanting to get a full view of what was in front of me. Zane was in front of me and had dropped his arm back to his side. Other than that, he hadn't moved. I looked up at Lewis and Cora. Lewis was paler than usual and he hadn't moved from his spot a foot or so away from her. Then I looked at Cora who was still standing perfectly still. Once again I made a quick scan of her body – I didn't see any blood. Her eyes were closed but her face hadn't tensed up at all and her hands were still resting at her sides.

I came out from behind Zane and walked towards her and when I was only a few feet away I felt my heart thud hard again. The bullet had stopped _less than an inch_ from the center of her chest. I let out a sigh of relief and waved Zane over and I saw her open her eyes, causing the bullet to drop into the dirt again. Lewis grabbed her hand and pulled her over to him and thankfully I saw some of the color come back into his face. The kid looked like a ghost for a second. I heard him start muttering something and squeezing her and I turned and went back to Zane and hugged him. He was pretty pale, too. This probably scared him a lot, considering how bad he felt in the first place. I bit my lip and slipped my hand into his. I considered asking Cora to help him calm down a little. I knew she wouldn't say no, but I know he makes her uneasy and I'm pretty sure that she's had her emotions yanked around enough for one day. I'm just hoping he doesn't feel guilty forever.

-

_**Later That Day – Lewis**_

The hard part of the day was over, and _holy hell_ was the first part of the day hard! I was glad that my idea had worked and that Cora had gone along with it like a trooper but it felt good to be able to just unwind with some lame family activities at my mom's house.

We've been here for a few hours now. The first hour or so was kinda hectic – taking Cora around to each member of my family and introducing them to each other was a little nerve-wracking but she handled it well. Then she and my older sister talked for about 30 minutes about God knew what – girl stuff I'm assuming, but I made sure she was settled and felt comfortable before taking a step back. After a while I'd sat down on the couch with my 17 year-old cousin Bradley and started playing _Counterstrike _with him, but every few minutes I paused and got up to look out the glass door to where Cora was playing with some of the "little McCartneys," in her words, outside. This time I went a little further and stood in the open sliding-glass doorway that led outside. Cora was outside in my mom's garden surrounded by my sister's 3 and 5 year-old sons David and Christopher, and my 8 year-old cousin Amanda. They were smiling and Cora had bent down to show them something that was in her hand. I felt myself smile and Christopher noticed that I was standing there watching them and ran over to me, immediately beginning to tug at the front of my shirt, dragging me over to where the rest of them stood.

"Look, Uncle Lewis! We found a snail!" He was practically squealing. I looked down at what they were looking at and sure enough, on a leaf in Cora's hand was a small snail. I smirked down at her and she looked up at me, beaming.

"Cantareus aspersus!" She said happily and I laughed a little. It certainly was, or in English – just your basic garden snail. I smirked and ruffled Christopher's hair and smiled down at her.

"Sure is." I said. I felt an embarrassingly goofy smile make its way onto my face as I watched her with them – she absolutely loves kids and they seemed to really be enjoying her. It was a pretty adorable sight, I couldn't lie. I know how badly she's always wanted a family but thought she'd never be able to have one, and to be honest I think she'll make an incredible mom. But this was another reason why it made me so uncontrollably angry that there was some psycho out for her blood who wouldn't bat an eye at taking that dream away from her. I felt my smile falter a little but didn't let it disappear. We'd be ready for Denman when she came. She might not be playing any games this time around, but neither were we.

-

_**Christmas Day – Dr. Denman**_

I had grown pretty weary of Jerry giving me his slack about this project. I was sick of listening to him tell me that I was going too far – he was the one stepping out of line, trying to talk back to his boss. He tried to tell me to let it go – leave the mermaids alone. He had the nerve to try to tell me that they were "just kids." These girls are anything but just kids, and I don't plan on giving them the benefit of the doubt for otherwise. They are scientific miracles and horrible, sneaky brats. Ones that I don't plan on letting slip by me now. Well, if Jerry didn't want to help me then fine. I gave him his Christmas present a little early last night – I fired him. I didn't need anybody trying to hold me back. I didn't need anybody's negativity and attitude trying to keep me from getting what I deserved. I had caught these little bitches twice, and twice they've tricked me and gotten away. Well that wouldn't happen again. This time I don't want them alive; no tricks this time. I will take them all, and I want them all dead.

I stared down at the photo I had taken from my ex-intern's home the other day. It looked like this girl had lied to me in more ways than I thought. I knew she had been friends with the other mermaids, I knew it. But now I had proof that she was involved with their little friend, the McCartney boy. I flipped through the file I had stolen from the old man's house and felt a smile spread across my face as I started to piece some things together. Cleo, the sweet one. Rikki, the tough one. Emma, the smart one. Cora, the brave one. This was coming together quite well for me if I did say so myself, and I think I've come up with the perfect way to smoke these girls out of hiding. I ripped the picture in half and let the pieces drop back to my desk. I was going to make this a very, very happy new year for myself indeed. And I had the perfect spot reserved on the wall in my home office for my award.

I had taken to watching Cleo these days. Cleo, the sweet one. Very sweet, a little slow. Hell, after watching her for a few days I'd actually gotten bored and moved onto another one. I considered this little brat to be an airhead. Perfect for what I needed her for; to lure her out where I wanted her. Gilbert was too responsible to not help out her friends if they needed it, she'd be easy. I grinned and thought about the Chadwick girl. She was a smartass and probably not very easy to trick. I thought about Harrison Bennett's, son, Zane. That kid is a ticking time bomb with a temper, just like his father. I could certainly use this to my advantage and I intended to. All I need to do is mess with his little girlfriend a little and I'll break him. I'll get him on my side – just like he'd been on my side once before. As for Cora, well… she'd made this incredibly easy for me. I had something special planned for my scheming little ex-intern. I was going to rip this girl apart – or have her own friends rip her apart _for me_ – I haven't quite decided yet. I've got so many options as it is - This would be a lot of fun! I slapped her file shut and started writing out some notes of my own. I was going to turn these kids against each other and it would be like taking candy from a baby.

Step one: rain a little on Rikki Chadwick's Christmas. I wouldn't take her just yet. I'd mess with her just - but just enough to start pushing that boyfriend of hers to his breaking point.

-

**A/N**: Denman is going after Rikki – what will happen to Zane? Is he going to side with Denman and crack under the pressure, or will he stand strong and listen to reason? 27 reviews for chapter 6, I think! Love hearing what you all think, thanks for being so supportive! : D


	6. The Offer

**A/N**: In this chapter, Rikki is stalked and Zane gets an interesting offer from a certain evil scientist – does he take her up on her offer? Read, review and enjoy everybody!

-

_**A Few Days Later - Dr. Denman**_

Since I've asked Jerry to take his leave, I've hired on a few more ambitious men to my crew – John and Eric. What I had planned for them had the potential to be quite a lot of fun. They told me that they weren't comfortable with murder – but everything short of it was fine with them. And you know what? That was fine with me because I wanted to be the one to kill these girls personally. But I was going to use them to help me manipulate the Bennett boy. They all recognized me, but they didn't know who John or Eric were and this was where the fun would begin. First things first: start messing with the Chadwick girl.

I gave them her picture. I told them where she worked, where she went to school, where she hung out. I smirked when I thought of their mission: their only job right now was to follow her. Just to follow her, very professionally dressed. People would think nothing of two attractive, well dressed men chasing some hood-rat. They weren't to say anything to her and if she started to run I instructed them to give chase for a few seconds and then to disperse - just to make her nervous. To let her know that there were people after her. I sent them out and let them do their work.

The report I received from them after a few days was perfect – just what I had wanted.

"She held out on her own for a few days, Linda. She was pretty nervous all right. She ran a few times, once it was perfect – John came up from one side and started following her and I came right from the other direction. Once she saw that she was surrounded she bolted and ran. Today we saw some other kid with her, though." Eric said proudly. I grinned; I kind of wished I had been able to see it for myself but unfortunately I am recognizable by these brats. I smiled even wider and flipped through my file on the girls looking for a picture. In another second I pulled out a photo of Zane Bennett – my good friend Harrison Bennett's son.

"Is this the kid you saw?" I asked.

"Yup, that looks like him all right. Kinda nervous lookin' kid, at least he was today."

"Excellent. All right boys, you know the plan. Go make him _more_ nervous." I grinned and was happy when they smiled back at me – why couldn't Jerry have had the fire that these two have? It's refreshing to have people do what I want them to do without questioning me. The two of them grabbed their suit jackets and left and I turned back to my work. This was perfect; Zane was already panicking? Well then, he'd been in a LOT of trouble when I really started pushing him.

*

It's been a few days and if I could promote Eric and John, I would. They've done exactly what I've asked them to and I couldn't be more pleased with the daily reports I was getting. Zane was constantly with Rikki whenever she was out in public, and he was beginning to really get paranoid. Eric brought me some photos they took while Zane was waiting for Rikki to come out of her house and this child looked positively haggard: bugged alert eyes, dark circles under his eyes, fists and jaw permanently clenched… he's beginning to crack. Silly child – too worried about protecting his woman to realize two very important things: one being that the Chadwick girl was better off helping herself than anything he could do, and the other being that if I had had John and Eric following them with the intent of killing he and Rikki, they would be dead by now. Not that I was complaining about his blind and _incredibly_ male perspective. It made my work so much simpler and so then I gave Eric the go-ahead to carry out the plan to push Zane Bennett to the edge. He had said that he wasn't comfortable with killing – he had too much at stake which was fine; I could understand that. So, he wouldn't have to. Instead of "shoot to kill," I had given him other instructions: aim to miss. He would be following Rikki on one of her swims and giving her the jolt of her life. If I knew this little firecracker's personality, and I'm pretty sure that I did, it would make her more angry than scared – angry enough to rant about it to her boyfriend.

"Have you got everything you need?" I asked casually perching on the edge of my desk. I watched him pick up a duffel bag and his scuba gear.

"Yes ma'am."

"Do you know precisely where you're waiting?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Now remember, John will be above you and about a half kilometer away in the boat with the radar to let you know when she's headed your way. I think you'll be able to take it from there, at least I hope so."

"Absolutely, Linda! I've got this, I swear."

"Perfect. I would hate to second-guess my decision to hire you on."

"You won't regret it, I swear."

"All right, go on then you two." I nodded towards the door and without another word from them they were gone. I sighed and spun slowly to look out the window. Now all I had to do was to wait.

-

_**Rikki**_

I couldn't believe what had just happened. I hoisted myself up onto the deck behind Zane's house and steam-dried myself as fast as possible. I was seething when I saw the scratch across my shoulder – okay, so it's not like it was deep or anything and it didn't even hurt, and it wasn't bleeding, but come _ON_! If I'm being followed and you're going to take a _shot_ at me while I'm swimming at least let me be able to see where the hell you _came from_. I didn't see anything down there and all of a sudden I get grazed by a crossbow?! _Really_?! Whoever did this was a punk.

I stormed into Zane's house from the back door and found him sitting on the living room couch.

"Rikki? What happened to you?!" He saw the tiny, miniscule scratch on my shoulder and jumped up. I raised my eyebrows and sat him back down and flopped onto the couch with him.

"It's a scratch, Zane. Literally. Look at it. I don't even think it bled." I laughed and sighed. Apparently this wasn't enough for him.

"Who _did_ this to you?!"

"Take it easy. One of Denman's goons I'm guessing. D'you know, she gave them crossbows, Zane? _Who uses crossbows?!_" Seriously, where does a person even _find_ a crossbow these days? Or EVER?! Then I took a good look at his face. He was pretty pale – kind of greenish. It didn't look like he'd slept in a while and he had some wicked bags under his eyes. He had frozen still at what I had just said and I thought maybe he wasn't feeling so great, "You wanna take a nap or something?"

"What? No… no I don't want to take a nap. Rikki, this guy could have killed you!" He sounded panicky, like he had for the last few weeks. But this time he sounded different, a little worse. I raised one eyebrow and gave him a look.

"That's the thing, Zane. He _could_ have if he wanted to, but he _didn't_. I don't think he was trying to kill me, I think he just wanted to scare me. Denman wouldn't hire a crappy shooter."

"_Scare_ you?! Rikki this guy took a shot at you with a crossbow—" He started. I laughed when he said it. I was still having a fun time realizing that somebody had _actually_ just used a crossbow. "—Rikki this isn't a joke! It was one of Denman's men, probably one of the guys that have been following you! Of _course_ he was trying to kill you; that's exactly what she wants them to do!"

"I think you need to calm down, Zane. Go lay down – I'll order a pizza or something." I said. He stared at me for a minute and in another second, without another word, he sprang up off the couch and bolted up the stairs. Something weird was going on with him and he definitely needed to relax.

-

_**Zane**_

I took Rikki back to her apartment a few hours ago. She didn't want me to. I did anyway. She gave me an Indian burn – it was still red. When I got back home I didn't know what to do. My hands were shaking. I was freaking out and it felt like I was losing my mind.

Somebody tried to kill Rikki today. She might not have been making a big deal about it but this person could have taken her head off. Linda Denman wanted her and the rest of the girls dead. She was going to turn them into science experiments and this time she wanted them dead. The first time around this crap had been my fault – Denman had come after them because _I_ had helped her. I didn't know at the time that the mermaids were my friends and my girlfriend but it was my fault anyway. And now after I started to redeem myself a little she comes back and there is absolutely NOTHING that I can do to keep Denman away from them. I don't _have_ any powers – I'm a good shot but apparently these guys are better. The girl I love and her best friends, my friends too, are going to be picked off and killed. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I wracked my brain for hours and couldn't come up with anything. Nothing. I was going to have to just sit around and watch while this psychopath came after Rikki. I let out a yell and before I knew it my right fist was through my bedroom wall and there was a pile of drywall dust on my carpet. I couldn't even feel it and at that point I couldn't have cared less. I would do anything, absolutely anything to keep Denman away from Rikki and - no matter how drastic and I _still_ came up with nothing. I heard my phone ringing so I yanked my hand out of the fresh hole in the wall and answered it.

"Yeah?"

"Hello, Zane." A woman answered me. This voice sounded familiar but not _that_ familiar.

"Who've I got?"

"Zane, I'm sad that you don't recognize my voice. It's Linda. Linda Denman, your father's friend." She said. Ugh. I knew that I knew that voice from somewhere. And she had the nerve to introduce herself as 'my father's friend'?

"_You_! You're no friend to anyone, you're just a bloodthirsty bit—"

"Choose your words carefully, Zane. I've called because I have an offer for you."

"I don't want anything from you." I was ready to slam the phone shut when I heard her say something else.

"Is that so? You don't want to help Rikki? Well all right, if that's what you want… Have a pleasant evening, Zane."

"Wait – what did you say about Rikki?"

"Zane, I _clearly_ don't need _all_ of the mermaids – just one. I mean, Rikki is a prime specimen because of how healthy and strong she is and her powers _are_ the most intriguing, but I'm more than willing to settle for another one."

"What are you talking about?"

"I will leave Rikki alone in exchange for another mermaid."

"You want me to help you catch one of the other girls?" I asked. I couldn't even believe she would ask me something like this but for some reason the thought wasn't as appalling as it should have been, "…Which one?"

"That is entirely your choice, Zane. Do we have a deal?" She asked. I paused for a minute and looked down at my hand. Huh. It was bleeding – I still couldn't feel it. This woman was telling me that I could help Rikki. That I didn't have to be completely worthless after all. I creased my eyebrows and thought of the girls. I had said that I would do anything, and I meant it.

"Deal."

-

**A/N**: Zane is beginning to crack a little bit, and his temper is back – is he really going to help Denman? And does Rikki see what's happening to Zane? Find out in chapter 7! Reviews are lovely, I hope you enjoyed chapter 6!


	7. Wrong

**A/N**: Hey guys! Here's Chapter 7. It's a long one because I haven't posted a chapter in like a week D : I'm sorry! : ] Hope you guys didn't forget about me! Anyway, in this chapter we get a taste of just how far Zane is willing to go this time around to keep the girl of his dreams safe. But what happens when he starts to lose touch with reality and what's right? Read, review, and most importantly – enjoy! Take care, everyone.

-

"Rikki, you can't be telling me you don't see it. We see it and we don't see him nearly as much as you do." Emma has stopped wiping down the kitchen table to look up and stare hard at Rikki. Rikki let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her blue eyes.

"He's _fine_, Em. He's stressed out; we all get stressed out for crying out loud – look at ME. His dad is a jerk – moreso than normal lately – things aren't going so well for him at school and now on top of it all he's worried about _us_."

"He has been a little weird though, Rikki… I have to admit, even considering all that other stuff." Cleo said from the living room where she stood next to the fish tank feeding her tropical fish.

"He's fine, guys. He just needs to relax a little bit; I'm working on it." Rikki tugged at the end of her ponytail and flopped onto the other side of the couch in their apartment next to Cora, who was easily writing out endless calculations for her statistics homework. Rikki blinked at her and raised an eyebrow, "How can you _do_ that?" Cora snapped out of her zone and smirked at Rikki and blushed a little.

"I… I'm good with numbers, I guess."

"God, I _hate_ numbers." Rikki changed the channel on the television and settled comfortably into her spot when Emma piped up from the kitchen again – to talk about Zane again, much to Rikki's dismay.

"Well… Maybe Cora can help him to calm down a little bit?"

"Yeah, Rikki. I mean… I wouldn't mind, if you think it would help. I've gotten better at making the results a little more long-term than they have been, and he has seemed a little… well. A little tweaked..."

Rikki paused and thought about it. She knew Cora was still not too comfortable around Zane which she could understand. She could see it on the girl's face for crying out loud. But she did think it would help and she couldn't help but consider it. She had said that she wouldn't mind, after all… and she wouldn't leave Cora alone with him. She wouldn't do that to her. The only thing she was really worried about was what Zane's mental state would do to her. Rikki did admit to herself that her boyfriend hadn't been himself for a while. But this ability of Cora's made the other person's mental anguish settle physically right into her stomach and as far as mental anguish… Rikki knew that Zane had a lot.

"You sure?"

"I'm positive." Cora responded. Rikki gave her a look – an 'are you absolutely positive?' kind of look. Cora smiled a little and nodded once. Zane _did_ make her a little uneasy, but since she was trying to let the Defender in her work its way into her a little more these days, she trusted Rikki's belief that he was just under a lot of pressure. It was certainly more than possible; they were all a little more stressed than normal these days because Denman was around, and the fact that Lewis never wanted her to be on her own wasn't helping – hence why she had taken to her statistics homework at the girls' apartment while Lewis was at work. Lewis probably wouldn't be thrilled about the fact that she had just agreed to help Zane, but it couldn't hurt – right? The worst was over; it was in the past, now. She would just have to let her nerves stop acting up so much whenever she was around him.

"Okay; he's coming by right before Lewis is going to come pick you up. Work your magic then." Rikki gave Cora a tight smile. She was thankful that her friend had agreed to do this, but there was still something nagging at the back of her head. _Was_ Zane really okay? She hoped so, but she would be lying to herself if she said he had been acting fine. He had a temper – he'd always had a temper and so did she – it was one of the things that kept them together for so long; their outbursts tended to even one another out. However these days, Zane's outbursts had been random, unprompted and when Rikki tried asking him what was the matter, he would stare at her and storm off. There had been so many times in the past few days alone where she would look at him and not be sure if he were about to scream or cry or put another _hole_ through his wall, which she had noticed he'd done. She just wanted him to be okay and she was hoping – _really_ hoping – that Cora could help him. She'd even suggested that he might think about seeing a psychiatrist. Rikki smirked when she thought about it. She had always called them quacks and denied that they were real doctors, but when her mom decided to storm back into her life they didn't seem like such a bad idea. She ended up seeing one about once a week and to her own shock, the doctor _did_ help a lot. What was better than ranting to somebody neutral for an hour about all the things that pissed her off? She sighed and glanced at the VCR clock – Zane would be there in less than half an hour. In less than half an hour, hopefully some progress would be made.

-

_**Cora**_

Something feels wrong. Zane isn't even here yet and something seems wrong. I was a little nervous already because Cleo had just left with Nate, and Emma had left to see a movie with Ash, but Rikki was waiting right here with me. My stomach already had a knot in it but at that point I couldn't tell if the knot was my _own_ nerves, or if these were Rikki's nerves affecting me. This mermaid nonsense really gets on my nerves sometimes. I wish I were better at it. You'd think that after _five freakin' years_, I would be. But _oh_ no; not me. I felt myself take a breath and at that very second there was a knock at the door. Here goes nothing! Rikki got up off of the couch and went to answer the door and the second she pulled the door open I felt my body lurch forward hard. This was painful. This was very, _very_ painful and he wasn't even inside yet. I gasped a little and put my hand out on the arm of the couch to brace myself and tried to push the shock off of my face. I must have done a decent job because Rikki pulled Zane inside and smiled hopefully as she brought him over to me.

"Hey, Zane. How have you been?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful despite the growing knot in my stomach. I shuddered a little when I saw the look on his face – blank, cold. Almost like it had that night in the basketball court almost two months ago.

"Cora," He nodded once at me and I felt a wave of nausea hit me when Rikki sat him down on the couch right next to me and sat on his other side. I felt myself tip over a little at the rush of pain that flooded my midsection and gasped quietly again. Wow. This guy really was upset. Very, very upset, "I guess you kind of know how I'm feeling, then?" Uh oh. I must not have hidden it too well. I felt my cheeks flush a little. I heard Rikki clear her throat a little before she spoke.

"Cora is gonna try to help you out, Zane. Make you feel a little better, yanno?" She said. I was surprised by how soft her voice sounded. She was really worried about him, I could tell. I had never heard her speak like this before. Zane smoldered. He smoldered and I could feel it, and it was a very, very powerful intimidating feeling.

"I don't need help, Rikki. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Zane. Just give this a shot? For me?" She asked firmly. Zane was quiet for a second and I caught him glance at me out of the corner of his eyes before sighing and finally he nodded.

"All right, okay. For you. But I'm feeling a little better already, you know. Told you it was no big deal."

"That's kind of how it works, Zane. But it'll be even better if you give her a few minutes, jeez." Rikki smirked and leaned back on the couch and gave me a little hopeful smile. I tried to shoot one back at her. Zane turned his head to look at me and the second our eyes locked I felt a cold, heavy lump form in my chest. Wow. This was overpowering. This was about the same as I'd felt at Max's funeral. The only difference was that at Max's funeral, I had the mourning of 30 people collected in my stomach. This time, I had 30 people's pain bottled into _one guy_. I forced down my shock and instead inched closer to him. It was overwhelming but the Protector in me was still willing me to help him.

"How is it now?" I asked quietly. I looked straight at him and the uneasy feeling came back.

"Getting there." He said. His responses were so short, so icy these days – even to Rikki. It was saddening; I knew she wanted to believe that he was fine, but I knew that even she didn't really believe that. Who could, seeing the way that he was acting? I felt myself smile awkwardly and I very slowly raised my hand.

"Good. Is it okay if I put my hand on your arm? Physical contact helps facilitate whatever this is a little bit better." I suggested. I bit my lip slightly – I didn't know if I should be worried by his response or not. He stared hard at me for a second. Thinking about it, I don't think he ever looked away from me. It was a little unsettling to have him stare at me. It wasn't a nice kind of stare, this was cold and unfamiliar.

"Sure." Another one-word reply. I braced myself and reached out and placed my hand on his upper arm. The second I touched him I nearly blacked out. I saw dots in front of my eyes. This feeling was overwhelming. It was dark, and cold, and painful. It was angry. I shuddered unnoticeably but didn't let go of him. It was a really crappy feeling, being in that much pain and still needing to help this kid. I didn't know what was wrong with him – this was one thing I definitely couldn't do, but all I knew was how I could help and that's what I had to do.

A minute or two passed just like that in complete silence. Rikki stayed diligently right next to Zane on his other side watching us. However, every 30 seconds her phone went off. Either texts or calls, every form of a message that she could receive was coming in. I glanced over at her and could see the frustration written on her face and when I saw it I didn't need to ask who it was. Only one person made her make that face when they called: her mom. After it went off a seventh time, she finally picked it up and checked the messages. I immediately saw her face drop and I felt a subtle tug at the knot in my stomach.

"What is it, Rikki?" I asked. She looked up at me and I saw fear in her blue eyes.

"She said that she had to take my dad back to the hospital. I don't know if it's anything major, but I should call her to find out…" She started. Zane picked his head up and for the first time since he got here looked away from me.

"You should call and find out. Go on, we'll be fine here." Zane said finally. My eyes bugged slightly – he wanted to be alone with me? I didn't have any perverted thoughts, I knew Zane loved Rikki but why on Earth would he ever want to be alone with me? I thought I still made him uncomfortable because of what happened a while back. I looked at Rikki's face and could tell she was a little nervous, too. I knew she was panicked because of her father and I didn't want her to have to babysit us when something could have happened to him so I tried to mask the worry on my face and gave a slight nod. She paused and looked at the two of us for a second before getting up quickly and heading down the hall to her bedroom. After a second we heard her door shut.

In another second I felt a hand come up to mine. Zane had picked up my hand and took it off of his arm and let it drop back to my lap. I was confused so I looked up at him.

"Are you okay now, Zane?" I asked. Dumb question. I could feel that he wasn't. But this was strange. It wasn't like talking to him on a normal day. This was like I was a doctor talking to a patient.

"No."

"Okay. Well, if you let me put my hand back on your arm it'll go faster. If not, that's okay too. It will take a little longer but I can move away if you're not comfortable—" I started to ramble. It happens when I'm nervous; he knows that. But he cut me off.

"Be quiet, Cora." Those three, very simple very short words came out so coldly that I was actually taken aback. I froze in my spot and he turned on the couch to face me. In less than a second I felt his arm fly out and he grabbed me by my arm. I flinched hard – he wasn't hurting me, maybe he was squeezing a little harder than he needed to but it was an involuntary reaction. However when I saw the look on his face I shut up immediately. He was not happy. This was the same face he'd had on the first night we 'met.' I gulped slightly and felt the knot give another painful lurch, "This has gone too far. She's stalking Rikki. They took a shot at her while she was swimming. She could have been killed. Denman isn't playing any fucking games anymore and I think I'm done playing them, too. Denman doesn't need every mermaid, she only needs one. I will not let her down again. It's nothing personal." His fingers started gripping my arm tighter and I couldn't tell if it hurt or not because of how overpowering the pain in my stomach was, but when I tried to twist my arm out of his grip he dug his fingers into my arm tighter and tugged it a little, preventing me from moving away – _then_ it hurt. All I could do was stare back at him. I was completely frozen in my place as my heart pounded so hard that I thought it would pop out of my chest. Zane was mad. I could feel his rage the minute he walked into the room, but now he had focused it. He had focused it _on me._ His sentences were choppy, he wasn't making a whole lot of sense but it wasn't hard for me to pick up what he had meant. The words clicked in my head immediately and I got very dizzy. When he had said that he was done playing games, he meant that he was done with _me_.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door – Lewis. For a moment I had completely forgotten he was on his way, but I still couldn't move or talk. It wasn't until he knocked again that it registered with Zane that someone was at the door and he let go of my arm quickly and answered it. My heart was racing fast and it felt like I had just run for miles. I heard Zane greet Lewis and in another second I saw him come through the door. When I saw him smiling as he walked towards me I pushed a smile onto my own face. I was happy to see him, especially after what had just happened. But he had no idea what Zane had just told me. And come to think of it, he hadn't been specific even though he had been pretty clear. Either way, I doubted that it would be lucrative of me to mention what Zane had said now, _in front of him_, especially with as manic he was acting. I rose from the couch quickly and hugged Lewis tightly and felt him kiss my cheek. In another few seconds we were heading towards the door and I felt myself clinging tightly to his arm as we walked. I stuffed my free hand into my pocket and I could feel it shaking against my hip and sighed. I heard Lewis start to tell me about his day, but my eyes were locked on Zane's until the door shut behind us.

-

_**Lewis**_

On our way back to the apartment I noticed that Cora seemed a little distracted. She held onto my arm tightly and she'd space out every minute or so. I frowned, worried. I had been surprised when I went to pick her up and Zane answered the door, and I was even more surprised when I saw what he looked like – bags under his eyes, bloodshot eyes, clenched jaw. He didn't look happy, that's for sure.

I sighed when I realized what had probably just happened – they had used Cora's ability in order to get Zane to calm down. It didn't look like it worked too well; that kid looked seriously strung out on something. I know he's stressed out these days, but wow. I was a little frustrated that the girls would go ahead with something like this without telling me but I _had_ been at work. Either way it didn't look like Cora was feeling too great and she _looked_ absolutely terrified. I knew better than to ask her at that moment what was wrong – she was too distracted and probably in a lot of pain if my theory was right. She would need to calm down a bit on her own first and so I would be patient – but watchful. If Zane had done one more thing even remotely out of line, I _swear_…

When we got back to the apartment we stopped to talk to Tyler - who was lounging on the couch – for a while. Even while we talked I could tell that her mind was somewhere else. I gave her hand a squeeze and she looked up at me and then I could see the distress in her face. I gave her a concerned look and nodded off down the hallway – I wanted her to relax. She nodded a little and I felt her kiss my cheek, then she excused herself and disappeared.

After a while I wanted to check on her, so I hoisted myself off of the couch and headed for my bedroom where I figured she might be laying down. I opened the door and glanced around curiously – she wasn't in there. Then I saw that my bathroom door was cracked and the light was on and I half-smirked, knowing where she was now. I was thankful that I had drawn the long-straw when we picked rooms and that I had my own bathroom. Tyler and Kyle had to share a small one at the end of the hall. I head to the other side of the room and opened the door a little more and stepped inside, finding her exactly where I expected to: in the bathtub with most of her body submerged under water with her arms folded comfortably across her midsection with her eyes closed. Her silvery tail flopped over the edge of the other end of the tub. I smiled sadly and walked in and sat on the floor next to the tub and propped my arm up on the edge and watched her carefully. I knew she was in pain. I hated to see her in pain, but I knew how to recognize it. Being in the water helps her a lot, it's like some kind of wild mermaid medicine or therapy. But still, I wish she didn't have to suffer through this. I watched the rise and fall of her chest – it was slower now than it had been on the way home which I was thankful for; it meant she had calmed down a little. I dipped my hand down into the water and slipped it around one of hers. When she felt it I saw her eyes open under the water and the smile that I loved made its way onto her face. She held onto my hand and pushed herself up letting her upper body break the surface of the water and wiped her face with her free hand.

"Feeling better?" I asked. She smiled again and nodded and sighed contently.

"Like you wouldn't believe!" I smiled and leaned forward slightly and pecked her forehead. She grinned and flicked the end of her tail at me, getting water droplets in my face. She was definitely feeling much better now, and I was glad. But, I still needed to know what had disturbed her so much earlier.

"Good. So… do you want to tell me what happened at the girls' place today?" I asked. I watched her idly reach down and rub her forearm and her face furrowed in deep concentration. She wasn't upset, but she was thinking. She sat still and was very quiet for a minute, and her eyes closed slowly. Her concentration never broke and I knew what was happening – she was tapping into her visions. Finally she looked directly into my eyes and spoke.

"Lewis… I think there is something very, seriously wrong with Zane. And I think he might have made a big mistake because of it."

-

**A/N**: Zane is helping Denman and he's serious about taking it to the next level this time. What happens when the girls find out? Will they and Lewis be able to figure out a solution to the Denman problem before Zane and Denman ruin things for good? Review, everyone – I love to hear what you think! Take care, everyone. I hope you're all doing well this cold/flu season, since I sure as heck am not : ] Lol.


	8. Over the Edge

**A/N:** Hey guys! Rough chapter ahead as one of our beloved H2O couple "parts ways." Cora tells Rikki about her vision of Zane, and Rikki overhears something that disturbs her greatly and takes action. Denman reveals the rest of her plan to get the rest of the girls – making others do her dirty work for her. Read, enjoy, and review! Take care everyone, and since I don't say it nearly often enough I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to read my story. It means so much to me, so thank you : ]

-

_**Dr. Denman**_

I smirked and stretched casually in the chair behind my desk and cast my eyes at the fidgety kid sitting across from me. I let my arms come to rest on my desk and leaned forward, giving him my brightest smile.

"I'm glad you decided to help me, Zane. You're doing the right thing, you know."

"I know."

"Absolutely. What better way to make this whole mess just go away _and_ to let Rikki know how much you really love her at the same time – I'm sure you know that's something that every girl wants to know; Rikki is safe, and by the same token I get just what I want. Have you decided which of the girls you're going to hand over?"

"Yes." He said quietly. I raised an eyebrow and watched him with a smirk – he was digging at the back of his hand with his chewed-down fingernails. I looked down at his hands and saw that the back of his hand was bright red now and rolled my eyes a little bit. This kid needed pills, but I could care less if he ever got them or not. I only need him for one thing, and that is to break up this little fish-and-fish-lovers club. After this I really couldn't care less what became of him. More than anything I can't believe how dumb he is – he really didn't pick up much from his father. Harrison would _never_ have been this gullible. Zane really believed that I would only take one mermaid – and in exchange for the safety of his stupid, hood-rat girlfriend no less! I'd be taking her and the rest of them; he was just too stupid and blinded by love to let his logic work. Not that I cared, and I certainly wasn't _complaining_.

"Wonderful! Which one will it be?"

"Cora." He replied quietly and I watched him gulp. He still wouldn't look at me.

"Oh, don't look so _glum_, Mr. Bennett," I sighed and pushed myself away from the desk and stood up, sitting on the edge of the desk closest to him. I plucked my letter opener from the mug on my desk that held all of my pencils and pens and started tearing into the pile of mail, mostly bills and notices from my insurance company about my sabotaged laboratory, "You've made a good decision. You've made the _smart_ decision – no one will miss her, after all, and that's certainly the most tactful to handle things. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Good, good. Now, I need you to tell me anything you think that I should know."

"Her abilities. They're back. He scared them back into her. Trying to train her to defend herself with them now."

I sighed and tossed some junk mail into my wastebasket. He couldn't even speak in full sentences like a normal person anymore. I smirked and shook my head, assuming he was talking about the little liar's squeeze the McCartney boy. Either way her powers weren't the _most_ of my concern since I had known from the file I stole that she couldn't save herself with them even when she had them. It was the second part of what he said that frustrated me.

"Has it worked?"

"A little. Once."

"Well then, Zane, you're just going to have to scare them back _out_ of her, aren't you? Better yet, dear, preferably I'd like for you to bring her to me as incapacitated as possible. I can kill the little monster myself." I smiled pleasantly at him and I watched him fidget, leaning forward to idly mess with some of the figurines on my desk. His hand was raw and bleeding a little from his anxious clawing at it and I rolled my eyes quickly before he froze, looked up at me and spoke.

"Wait… you want me to… to _maim_ her?! I thought you just wanted me to _bring_ her to you, you didn't tell me you wanted me to hurt her—"

My frown disappeared and I gripped the handle of the letter-opener in my hand and slammed it down hard without looking. The shaft of it was buried almost half way through the wood of my desk right between his pinky and ring fingers.

"I will be very explicit about what I want Mr. Bennett and I will _get_ what I want! I don't care what you need to do – put her in a coma, drug her, break her arms for crying out loud I don't CARE. It's not like anybody would be getting the police involved, she's a wildcard! Nobody knows who she is, no one will bat an eye! You told me that her powers were back and that is a snag, but it would be an easily fixable one if you would just _grow a pair_ and do as I say! Or will I have to switch my attention back to your girlfriend?!" I yanked the letter opener out of the desk in one pull and pointed the tip in his face.

"No! No… _please_ don't touch her; I can do this, I'll do it, no problem. It won't be a problem."

"Well I certainly hope not. Otherwise we _will_ have a problem won't we? Get out of here. One of my guys will call you this weekend." I didn't say another word. I saw him stare at me, pale-faced with his eyes glazed over before he stood up out of the chair he was in and left the room.

Once he was gone my grin spread back onto my face. I turned the letter opener in my hand again and instead of putting it back in its place I jammed it back into my desk again and sat back in my soft leather chair. Wrenching this little group apart was proving to be easier than I thought. I didn't care how long it took – obviously, the sooner the better – but I knew I would get what I wanted. I was willing to wait for it and when I had all four girls I was going to savor destroying them for a good, long while – one by one. And what's more: Even after they're dead I'll bask in the glory for longer than they've been alive.

-

_**Rikki**_

It was not something I wanted to be hearing at that moment. It had been the day from hell; I'd gotten another D on a history exam turned back, my boss went on an angry tirade at work, I'd gone to check up on my dad at home after his release from the hospital only to find that he had gone out, but dear old mom was there. She tried to keep me there, tried to talk to me. I swore to myself a long, long time ago that I had nothing to say to her. So far it's been working for me and I had no desire to make that change.

"I'm sorry, Rikki. I can tell that you've had a bad day and everything, but… this is something that you need to be aware of. He wants me _dead_, Rikki." Cora had called after I had gotten home to tell me about a vision she had had. Now, I trusted her visions and they'd been right every other time, but this was too much.

"Cora, are you sure that maybe your visions aren't a little bit rusty after not having them for so long? Like… maybe ya need to break them back in or something – there's a chance this is just a false alarm. Zane is fine, he's just stressed out. Besides, and don't take this the wrong way… but I know you're still a little uncomfortable around him and maybe it's affecting your visions."

"I understand why you would say that, Rikki, and you're right – I am a little jumpy around him, still. But, that's the thing, Rikki. He's not fine and this isn't just stress. I know… I _know_ you love him, please don't get mad. But I saw this through _your_ eyes. I heard it through _your_ ears, just like I could before I lost my visions. You're going to overhear a conversation that Zane has on the phone. He'll be talking to one of Denman's men; you will know. You'll hear everything that they're saying to one another – there is no possible mistake."

I sighed. I was tired and when I was tired I tended to be meaner than usual. But I had gone out on a limb already to try to be nice to this girl that had saved my butt more than once; even so I had to segway out of this conversation. I didn't want to hear it at the moment, my brain was so full of other miserable garbage that I don't think anymore would even _fit_. I sat down in a chair on the patio and took a long, slow drag of my cigarette. I was proud of myself – I had 'quit' a few times now but whatever. After _living_ through today I considered this my well-earned reward. I closed my eyes and toned down my temper.

"I'll be careful, okay?"

"Please be, Rikki – he's really, _really_ not well. I know you've got a lot going on, I know you don't want to think about this, but… just please. You know I won't be able to leave you alone if you're not, and I think you've been stalked enough for the time being, yeah?"

I smirked and rolled my eyes a little bit. Cora was a trip, but I knew she cared.

"I'll be careful. I promise." I said, hoping it would be enough for her. She was quiet for a second.

"Okay. Talk to you later, Rikki!"

"See ya." I replied and hung up. Now I had to worry about my own stress, Zane's stress, and now Cora was saying some things that sounded a little iffy. Is there something wrong with her, too? What _else_ could crop up now?

-

_**Two Days Later – Rikki**_

I was thankful that the weekend was finally here. Things seemed to be calming down a little bit. I had redeemed myself a little bit grade-wise by getting an A- on the pop-quiz we took in class yesterday so I wasn't feeling too bad about that. I hadn't heard from mom since Wednesday when I saw her at dad's place, and now I was spending the weekend with Zane at his place. From the looks of it this was just going to be a nice, quiet Saturday night.

Boy, was I wrong. Zane and I were relaxing on the couch in his living-room watching _Wanted_. It felt just like old times; He was stretched out with his legs up and I was laying on top of him with my back against his chest. It was kind of nice – it didn't _feel_ like anything was wrong, it didn't _feel_ like anybody was stressed out. Just us, nobody and nothing else but us. Then I heard the phone ringing. I figured Zane would just ignore it; he never picked up the landline phone because it was never for him, only for his dad – who was never even around. If the call was for Zane it came in on his cell phone. This was why I was shocked when I felt him get out from under me and hurry off towards the kitchen.

"Where are _you_ going?" I asked.

"I'll be right back, babe, just stay there." He responded before he disappeared into the kitchen. I looked at the end table next to the couch – there was a phone there; why did he need to take this call in another room? I bit my lip and thought back to what Cora had told me a few days ago. It couldn't be true… could it? It had to just be her nerves messing with her visions. But even still I reached for the phone, hit the mute button and picked up to listen. I heard another man's voice, someone I didn't recognize.

"How are you going to get her?" I heard the man's voice.

"Don't know, yet." Zane's voice was quiet and I realized he was probably trying to keep me from hearing what he was saying. Pff – so much for THAT, sweetie.

"What do you mean, you 'don't know yet'? This is serious, Bennett! You'd better figure this out soon you idiot!"

"Hey, look. Denman didn't _tell_ me to rush. She said to do it right and to not get caught, those were _her_ requirements!" I heard Zane hiss over the line.

"Well she put _me_ in charge of you and I _am_ telling you to bring the Dean girl in fast. The faster we get this ball rolling the faster we get paid for this project and the faster Denman leaves your little girlfriend alone!"

I froze when the meaning of this guy's words sunk in. Zane _was_ working with Denman. Whoever this guy was, he was in charge of Zane. And Zane _had_ agreed to bring Cora to Denman… in order to make Denman call her goons off of me. I had heard it with my own ears, just like Cora said. And just like she had said, there was really no making a mistake about the words that I heard. Zane had snapped. He had completely lost it and had literally crossed over to the dark side. I shoved the phone back down onto the receiver and got up off of the couch. I reached for my purse that I had dropped on the floor and stuffed my feet back into my sneakers. I heard Zane come back into the room and stared daggers at him when our eyes met.

"Rikki…wh-where are you going?"

"Goodbye, Zane. For good this time, goodbye. We're done." I growled at him and started heading for the door. I felt him grab my arm and pull me back to him.

"Don't do this, Rikki – don't leave me! We can talk about this…"

"Talk about what?! That you've decided to play _God_ with Denman?!"

I watched his face turn white.

"You heard that?" He asked. I didn't bother answering him.

"Who the hell do you think you are, Zane?! Who let you decide whose life means more than whose?! You've done some horrible things in the past Zane and you know what? I can see that you haven't changed a bit. You've gotten worse and everyone is right – you've lost your damn mind."

"I'm doing this for you! I need to keep her away from you, this is the only way that I can—" he started but I cut him off. I didn't want to even start to hear _that_ nonsense.

"Have a nice life." I stormed towards the sliding glass door that led out of the living room into the back yard. I felt Zane reach for me and without another word I clenched my fingers and burned him. I burned him more than I ever had before and I watched him grip his hand and recoil away from me in pain before turning to leave. I jogged down the driveway and made sure he wasn't following me as I head back to my apartment before pulling my phone out of my pocket and punching in Cora's number.

"Hello?"

"Cora… it's Rikki."

"You heard it, didn't you." She was quiet for a minute before she responded. I sighed.

"Yeah, I did. Stay in the house with Lewis, and I _mean_ that. Don't go _anywhere_ by yourself. You were right."

-

_**Dr. Denman**_

Today was a major success. I received a frantic call from Zane Bennett to tell me that the Chadwick girl had just broken up with him and he was once again doubting himself. I told him, "Of course you're doing the right thing, she's just a fiery one, Zane. She'll appreciate this when it's all over, she still loves you and she'll love you even _more_ for saving her." I hadn't even tried to hide my sarcasm this time and the kid had eagerly eaten up every word. What an idiot. But it was a great thing for me because the snapping of Zane Bennett phase of my plan was over and now I was able to move my attention back to the sweet, airheaded Cleo Setori. It shouldn't be hard to trick this one. I'll have my boys pick up that little brat's lover-boy, what's his name… Nathan, I believe. Some waiter over at the Sheppard's Inn. We'll bring him back, make him leave the little sweetheart a message telling her to "come meet him," and we'll drag her in as well. Once Rikki finds out that Zane has brought Cora Dean to me, I have no doubt that she'll come to me all on her own in order to save her stupid little friend. Then there only leaves the Gilbert girl. The smart, responsible one. Well, I have no doubts that the smart responsible one would have no problem using her _smarts_ to figure out how her silly little friend Cleo has been tricked and being so _responsible_ she would certainly try to save her friend.

I smirked. Their stupid little mermaid connection was doing them far more harm than good. The best thing? I wouldn't have to raise a finger to bring any of them to me; they'd all either be brought to me or would come to me on their own, trying to be heroes. Well, let them try – and let them fail. This was shaping up to be a very happy New Year indeed, and I planned on keeping my resolution this year.

These girls are mine.

-


	9. Playing God

**A/N**: Hey guys, hope you're all doing well. The mess begins in this chapter; friends are pulled apart, people are tricked and schemes are put in motion. Zane has crossed over to the dark side and takes his action. Read, enjoy and review!

Also, everyone should go read **Paradox Tremor's** The Setori Sisters' Secret! (Yes, he's got my permission to use the character of Cora, guys – don't worry! : ] ) It's definitely a great story and it's a lot different than any other H2O story I've read! Check it out and let him know how you like it, I promise it won't disappoint you!

-

_**Three Days Later**_

Nate walked out of the gym and into the crisp, cool nighttime air. It was unusually cool for a January evening in the Gold Coast, but Nate couldn't complain. After his workout nothing felt better than just being out in cool, fresh air. He hoisted his gym bag over his shoulder and started walking across the fairly empty parking lot towards his car. After a minute he stopped in front of his silver car and stuffed his hand into his pocket, starting to fish around for his keys. With a triumphant smile he plucked them out finally and shifted the extras out of the way getting ready to unlock his doors. He smiled contently and briefly shut his eyes and sighed. It had been a long day but the workout had definitely relaxed him. He was looking forward to taking a hot shower and spending the rest of the night with Cleo. With the press of the button the locks shifted audibly and he reached for the handle of the driver's side door. The second Nate's hand touched the cool steel he was hit roughly in the back of the head and crumpled to the asphalt, unconscious.

Eric smirked and rolled his eyes, nudging the young man with his foot to make sure he was out cold. Satisfied, he reached down and plucked the keys out of Nate's now open hand and stuffed them into his own pocket. After taking a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, Eric knelt down and pulled Nate up off of the ground and dragged him to a nearby black panel van. In a matter of seconds Nate was shoved into the back of the van and Eric hopped into the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot casually as if nothing had ever happened.

-

-

"We're can do this for as long as we have to until you get it right!" John growled at Nate. For the most part Nate was unscathed from his abduction with the exception of a nasty bump on the back of the head and a little dizziness. Once Eric had gotten him back to Dr. Denman's docked yacht, John had dragged him downstairs and tied him tightly into a metal chair and blindfolded him before he came to.

"I won't do it!" Nate hissed back through his teeth, turning his head blindly towards the tall muscular man towering over him with a tape-recorder.

"All right, since you think you're a hard-ass… We'll see how much of a hard-ass you really are in a minute…" John muttered and head to the other side of the room, throwing a cabinet open and digging through it. After a minute he pulled a syringe out of a wooden box and smirked, flicking the end of the needle – _Valium_. "Not a bad deal workin' for a doctor, I've gotta say. Let's see if this makes you a little more willing to talk, eh?"

Nate tensed in the chair and tried moving his arms. Nothing – he was tied down tight. He was strong but these binds were extremely constricting and he couldn't move his limbs in any more than an inch in any direction. He watched as the tall man bent down slightly and roughly jammed the needle into his forearm. Nate clenched his jaw hard and grunted; it wasn't the prick of a needle that exasperated him, but the realization of what he was being injected with. In a few minutes he'd be so far gone for an hour or so that he wouldn't even know who he was – or who Cleo was.

John grinned and took a seat on the other side of the room and kicked his legs up on the table, sighing contently. He'd have what he wanted out of this kid in a matter of minutes and then he'd be one sweet step closer to his paycheck.

-

-

"Take these and _go_!" Eric tossed the keys he had stolen from Nate to Zane. They landed with a metallic jingle in Zane's palm and the pale, stern-looking young man stared hard at his 'supervisor.' He squeezed the keys tightly in his hand and clenched his jaw, glancing down at the keys in his hand and flipped through them quickly until he found the one that he was looking for; the keys to the Sheppard's Inn, Nate's place of work.

And Cora's.

Zane cocked his head to the side slightly and nodded once at his superior before wordlessly turning and leaving the deck of Denman's yacht. He trodded down the deck towards the shore and caught a glimpse of himself in the water lit up by the half-moon and stared blankly at his appearance that 2 months ago, would have made him wince. Now, he didn't care. He looked like hell but it was worth it. Rikki had left him but this would bring her back – he was sure of it. Even Denman had said so; this was the only way to prove to Rikki how much he loved her. This was the only way to show her that he wasn't going to lose her. He tightened his grip on Nate's keys and got into his own car, driving off down the road towards the Sheppard's Inn.

-

-

Cleo bounced through the exit of the marine park, sighing happily as she stared up at the starry sky. It was beautiful, and it was a nice sight to end an already fairly decent day. She was a little sore and she stretched comfortably before digging through her purse for her phone to see if she had missed any messages. Her face lit up brightly when she saw that she had a voicemail from Nate, and she sat down on the bench next to the exit and listened to it.

"_Hey sweetie, it's me… I was thinking maybe we could have dinner? I set up a picnic just for us in the back of the gazebo at Tier Park; come and meet me here when you get off of work. I love you and I'll see you soon."_

Cleo smiled but cocked her head to the side slightly. Nate usually greeted her by name in his messages at least once, and even though this was certainly his voice it sounded sort of far away and dazed as if he had just woken up. She shook off her feelings – he very well _could_ have just woken up; she knew that he had had a long day and had taken the night off from work to relax so she hoped this was the case. She bit her lip and felt her cheeks get hot; a picnic in the park? It sounded wonderful and she was hungry. Then she thought about what Cora and Emma would say. They would have her ass for going anywhere that wasn't school or work, at least Emma would physically. Cora would just lay on one heck of a guilt trip, which might have even been worse.

'_But_,' she thought, her smile perking up again with glee, '_They can't be too mad – Nate will be with me, anyway. It's not like I'm really going to be alone._ _Not to mention I'm freaking starving, here…_' She shot a quick text to Nate's phone letting him know that she was on her way to meet him, dropped her phone back into her purse and left, hurrying down the sidewalk towards the park - unaware that it was not her boyfriend waiting for her behind the gazebo.

-

-

"Goodnight Craig, I'll see you tomorrow!"

"You sure you're all right locking up here, Cora? I don't think your boyfriend is going to be too thrilled about it. Kinda protective, ain't he?" Craig smirked at her, raising his eyebrow as he shrugged his jacket on. Cora bit her lip and felt the ghost of a smirk start to make its way onto her face; Craig _was_ right, but he had no idea why Lewis was so protective and she planned to keep it that way.

"Kinda. And I'll be fine, I promise. Get out of here." She smiled wider and shooed her last co-worker through the front door. With a wave from the other side of the glass, Craig was gone. Cora smiled and let out a sigh before heading to the employee break-room to gather her things. She dug through her cubby and pulled out her light black sweater and her purse before heading to the back door to check one more time that it was locked. She briefly rattled the knob and satisfied, she turned to make her way back through the room to exit through the front of the building. However, what she didn't see was the set of bloodshot brown eyes that were watching her through a space in the pantry shelf.

Cora tucked her hair behind her ear and pulled her keys out of her purse and started heading out of the room. But the second she turned around she was hit with a jolt of pain so overwhelming through the front of her head that she thought she had been hit with something. She threw her arm out, grasping the couch to keep her from falling onto the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, seeing darkness and then brightly colored shapes appear behind her eyes. She hadn't been hit with anything, she was having a vision – and from the feeling of it, this one would be far from harmless.

_The pain was excruciating and it flooded her entire body, starting in her head and rushing down to her chest in a matter of milliseconds. She felt herself gasp for breath as she saw images of Cleo being yanked out of the darkness by a tall shadowy figure. The images came in painful flashes across her mind and she watched as water was thrown on her friend, turning her into a mermaid in the middle of the floor in an empty room that was waterless aside from what was on Cleo's body. Denman approached her from the other side of the room, grinning her beautiful pearly smile. Cora watched as Cleo raised her hands, trying to defend herself from the mad scientist with her powers but there was no water in the room for her to manipulate – it had undoubtedly been planned this way. Her friend struggled on the floor, pushing herself back into a corner with her arms as Denman brought the knife down again and again. The scream that Cora heard was ear-piercing and it sent a wave of pain so violent through her stomach that she almost threw up. She could feel the knife piercing Cleo's flesh as if it were piercing her own – straight through the heart. _

For the first time in her 5 years of visions, Cora had to force herself out of it. It was too much to witness, too much to watch, too much to _feel_. She came out of the vision breathing hard, her entire body still wracked with pain and so she had no way of accurately guessing how far into the future this vision took place. She reached for her phone, flipping it open and dialing a number as fast as she could.

"Hello?"

"Emma!" She practically screamed over the line. Emma pricked her head up – this was the first time she had ever heard Cora raise her voice. Something was wrong.

"Cora, what's the matter?"

"Is Cleo home?!"

"No, she's not back from work yet. She must be running a little late – why?"

"_Shit_!" Cora yelled and clapped a hand over her face. The pain in her stomach was horrible, making it hard for her to breathe as she spoke. Emma on the other line sat up higher on the living room couch and raised her eyebrows. Cora had _cursed_? There was _definitely_ something very wrong. Cora braced herself for a split second, putting things together in her head as fast as she could, "Emma do not leave the apartment no matter what – you stay put, don't even answer the door! Shut the lights off pretend you're not home, I don't care what you need to do just _hide_! I'm calling Lewis!" And without waiting for a response from her friend she hung up and started hitting other buttons, hoping she was hitting the right ones.

What she couldn't see as she dialed the next number was the person who had slipped into the room during her violent vision who was now waiting silently behind the very couch she was struggling to stay sitting on – Zane Bennett.

She hit the 'call' button and waited in anguish as the phone rang. After the third ring she heard Lewis's voice.

"Hey! Ready for me to come and get you?" He asked. Cora could feel him smiling and it eased the horrible pain in every inch of her body slightly.

"Lewis, I just had a vision – this is serious; something very, _very_ bad—"

Before she realized what was happening her phone was yanked roughly out of her hand and thrown across the room, hitting the metal lockers and breaking into several pieces. She was only able to shove her body up slightly to see who had done it when a thick cloth was clapped over her face from behind – covered in chloroform. In the split second before she lost consciousness she jammed her elbow out behind her hoping to hit whoever had attacked her and made contact with skin. She heard her attacker grunt, and her world went black.

-


	10. Manipulation

**A/N: WARNING: Profanity (bad language), violence, and blood ahead. If you're not comfortable please be aware that you've been warned!**

Lewis and the girls realize what has happened to Cora and Cleo. We see what is happening to the two of them on Denman's yacht, and Lewis and the girls plot to save them while Denman plots to catch the last 2 mermaids.

******* I want to thank you guys for the patience you've had with me in this story; **I told a friend once that I am a sister first, a daughter second, a friend third, a student fourth, and an author last. So thanks for bearing with me while I handle all of my (what feels like BILLIONS) of other things to take care of! This is such a busy time of year so thanks for being so understanding. I've made this chapter extra long in my hopes to make up for the delay in getting this chapter out! Here it is everyone, I hope you enjoy it! Reviews are incredibly appreciated and I hope to reach 55 reviews before I post chapter 11! Take care everybody : ] Special thanks to Paradox Tremors for helping me out BIG TIME with the flow of this chapter!

-

_**Lewis**_

"Lewis, I just had a vision – this is serious; something very, _very_ bad—"

It was the last thing I heard her say before I heard a loud crashing and the line went dead. I froze and immediately felt my stomach turn to ice and drop about a mile.

"Cora?! Cora!" I screamed for her but I heard nothing after that. I felt my jaw clench and my teeth ground together and before I knew it I felt my fist make contact with the kitchen counter. She had been calling to warn me. She had had another vision and from what her voice sounded like, it was bad. And just as she was about to tell me what had happened and something – _someone_, I can _feel_ it – cut her off. Somebody had come for her and I knew that somebody was Zane _fucking_ Bennett. He had come for her and I hadn't been there to keep her safe or to keep that psycho from getting near her. I felt rage start to build in my chest and worry started swirling like crazy in my head – I had told her I wouldn't lose her easily and I had meant it. Zane Bennett was a dead man. Before I even realized what I was doing I felt realized I wasn't in our kitchen anymore. I stormed into my room and dragged my handgun out from its box under my bed and stashed it in its holster behind my back. I didn't know what had happened to Cora but I would be ready to get her out of trouble however I could. I didn't even feel my legs carrying me but I heard our apartment door slam shut behind me as I ran out.

*

I was nauseous by the time I reached the Sheppard's Inn 5 minutes later. The parking lot was empty and the building was dark and I was so furious and worried that my hands and chest were burning. I jiggled the front doors – locked. I groaned and closed my eyes for a second before running around to the back of the building that led out from the employee lounge with one thought in my mind – finding her. I gripped the door handle and found it unlocked so I threw the door open and ran inside.

"Cora!" I screamed in the dark. The lights were off and I flipped them on and scanned the room quickly, keeping my hand on my gun behind my back. There was nobody in the room, and I couldn't hear so much as a sound. I whipped my head to face the other side of the room and that's when I saw all of Cora's things which were still in the closet on the other side of the room. I felt my jaw clench hard again and let my eyes follow a trail of shattered plastic to the remains of her cell phone on the floor next to the lockers. My eyes scanned the rest of the floor and my body froze immediately when something behind the couch caught my eyes. Glaring back at me from the white tile there were a few dark red drops of liquid – unmistakably blood. Worst case scenarios started flooding my head and I dropped down to the floor to get a closer look. Something didn't feel right, but I could only imagine what had happened here. Then I caught the outline of an object out of the corner of my eye. Something was jutting out from underneath the metal shelf behind the couch; something I recognized. I reached out and grabbed what I saw, and when I pulled my hand back I was holding Zane's gun. He had been here. He'd been here and he'd dropped his gun.

Something in me snapped hard – this was the final straw. Denman and her lackeys had taken it to the next level. I started seeing red. If Zane had shed one drop of her blood I wouldn't be thinking twice about taking the _rest_ of _his_. I slammed my elbow into the locker behind me and felt a growl that I didn't even know I had in me come out of my mouth, and before the metal stopped ringing I was out the restaurant and back out in the darkness.

-

_**Minutes later**_

Lewis burst through the door to the apartment that Emma, Cleo and Rikki shared, startling Emma who was sitting up on the couch flipping through one of her textbooks. She stood up immediately upon seeing the absolute horror, rage and distress that was plastered on her friend's face. She looked down and realized that there was a gun in his hand.

"Lewis?! What's the matter?"

Hearing the noise Rikki emerged from her room and stood on the doorframe next to where Lewis stood. Lewis quickly realized that he still had Zane's gun out and put it down on the counter to keep anyone from getting uneasy. He shut his eyes and wiped his hands over his face quickly shoving his hair back and tried to collect himself enough to speak, but Rikki spoke first. Her face had gone pale as she watched what Lewis had just done.

"What are you doing with Zane's gun?" She asked, feeling her heart start to beat faster. She felt her hands clench out of reflex as she stared at her ex-boyfriend's weapon – this was unmistakably Zane's.

"He came for Cora. He has her… he came to the restaurant. I found blood on the floor and _that_," Lewis nodded at the gun as he spoke, his voice frantic and fast, "She called… she called to tell me about a vision; she had a vision and she said it was bad. He smashed her phone and took her before she could say any more than that…"

"Lewis… calm down, we just have to—"

"I'll _kill_ him." Lewis cut her off, his voice flat and serious. He wasn't even listening at this point. He sighed and paced back and forth across the small kitchen, trying to piece the incident together in his brain. He knew his girlfriend well and he knew that he was undoubtedly the only one she had called to warn. He looked up just in time to see Rikki and Emma exchanging nervous glances with one another, "Did she call either of you?!"

"She called me," Emma spoke up, trying to keep her voice calm, "She didn't mention a vision, but she sounded out of breath…"

"What did she say?" Lewis asked quickly. Emma furrowed her eyebrows and thought for a second before her face relaxed into realization.

"She asked me if Cleo had come home. And she told me to stay put… and then she said that she was calling you." She looked up at him slowly. Her face had softened considerably as she began to realize what this might mean for her best friend.

"And where is she _now_?" He asked quickly. Emma swallowed hard.

"She's still not back."

"Oh, no… Emma, do you know Cleo's voicemail password?"

"Well…yeah." Emma blushed slightly; she wasn't _supposed_ to know it, but her best friend was kind of predictable after so many years.

"Call her. If she doesn't pick up, pull her voicemail." Lewis ordered quickly, continuing to pace back and forth.

Rikki watched him from the doorway and she stiffened as she watched his hands clench and unclench and automatically felt her own start to ball into tight fists. She had never, ever seen Lewis so upset and this time she was on the same page as he was. Zane had gone too far. He was psychotic and took one of her friends away in exchange for her own safety. What he was too far gone to realize was that Denman would never stop at _one_ mermaid when she knew there were _four_. She had tricked him, and Zane had let her. Rikki knew that Cora was pretty tough for as shy as she was but she also knew how dangerous and now how angry at Cora that Denman and her men were. She felt something strange buzzing in the back of her head – a strange urge to get the four mermaids back together in one piece no matter what it took: Defender mode. She glanced at Emma who had her cell phone to her ear with a look of stern seriousness on her face and didn't need to be told to know that the feeling was mutual.

There were a few seconds of silence and Lewis stared at Emma expectantly. After another moment, her face blanked and he and Rikki watched the color drain from her cheeks.

"You guys… might want to hear this. Something doesn't sound right." She said quietly and turned her phone's speaker on, replaying the most recent message from Cleo's voicemail.

"_Hey sweetie, it's me… I was thinking maybe we could have dinner? I set up a picnic just for us in the back of the gazebo at Tier Park; come and meet me here when you get off of work. I love you and I'll see you soon." _The message from Nate filled the room, and although all three of them heard Nate's voice it was becoming abundantly clear that this was not the Nate that they knew.

"He sounds… sick, or really tired, or wacked out on—" Rikki started, muttering thoughtfully to herself. Lewis's face blanked into realization and he groaned, shutting his eyes.

"—or drugged. They drugged him too… You'd think this woman was a goddamn _pharmacist_ instead of a marine biologist!" He exclaimed, covering her face with his hands. When he pulled them away he was met with Rikki's raised and furrowed eyebrows.

"What's this mean, then? Where's Cleo?!" She asked, crossing her arms over chest. Emma clenched her jaw and looked at her friend; she knew Rikki was scared, even though she put on her tough-girl façade. Emma sighed – she was scared, too, and even moreso now: she had just figured out what had happened.

"They've got her, too. They used Nate as a trap to drag her in. They've got both of them, _and_ Cora." Emma's words were slow and deliberate as she pieced things together as she spoke. Rikki stiffened and her jaw clenched hard. This was serious. Not only were two of their friends taken, but an innocent bystander as well. The buzzing in her head progressed into to nagging ringing, peaked, and finally was gone. She picked her head up and stared at Emma, who was already looking back at her. Lewis watched their exchange from his spot a few feet away and his face hardened into seriousness.

"Let's go." His words were firm, and it wasn't a suggestion. But nobody needed to be told; within a few seconds the three of them were heading for the door, leaving the girls' apartment empty and still.

-

_**Meanwhile on Denman's yacht**_

Cleo squirmed slightly in the dark room, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She had no idea where she was but certainly remembered how she had gotten there. She remembered feeling that something was wrong when she reached Tier Park to meet her boyfriend. Nate hadn't sounded like himself in his voicemail, but she knew that it was his voice and he wouldn't ask her to meet him for no reason. However, as she got closer to the gazebo in the darkness the feeling grew. She had paused about 10 feet away from it and called his name.

"Nate?" She had gotten no response and terror froze her for a second before she decided it was time for her to leave. She had taken about three steps before she felt someone grab her arm roughly. Before she had even had time to see who it was she felt something heavy whack her in the back of the head and blacked out.

She groaned softly at the throbbing in her head that intensified with every move she made – this had to be Denman's work, no question about it. Cleo sighed, frustrated and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. There weren't many objects in the room that she could make out, though she was able to see a sliver of light coming in from what she assumed was the door and it was just enough light for her to see a drawer off to the corner of the room. She bit her lip and tried moving her hands a little only to find that they were tied behind her back to a steel pipe bolted to the wall. She yanked on it as roughly as she could but whoever had tied her hands up really hadn't been messing around – she could barely bend her fingers, which was more than likely the intent.

Just then the door burst open and Cleo squinted at the sudden brightness when the invader flipped on the lights. As she had suspected, Cleo was in a mostly empty room and was now faced by a tall muscular man approaching her with a small digital camera.

"Now, I'm assuming you know why you're here, but if you don't I'd be more than keen to take 15 seconds to give you the gist." The man smirked at Cleo and she could almost taste the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"How stupid do you think I am?!" She spat back at him, cutting her eyes. The man chuckled and rolled his eyes, pulling a fold up chair from the side of the room and setting it up in front of her, sitting down in it.

"Well, Linda _did_ say you were the dumb one. The cute ones usually aren't the brightest, sweetheart." The man didn't even bother looking at her as he fiddled with the camera, pressing some buttons and smirking. Cleo's teeth ground together and her eyes alone could have someone. Denman figured her for the _stupid_ one?! "Got somethin' I thought you might want to take a look at." The man turned the camera around so that Cleo could see the display screen. A video was playing – it was Nate, blindfolded and tied into a chair, being forced to leave Cleo the voicemail she had gotten earlier that day. They had kidnapped him, too? Cleo couldn't believe it and guilt tugged at her heart.

"Where is he?!" She demanded. The man laughed again.

"Oh he's still here, don't you worry. It's not him we're interested in, it's you."

"Let him go! He's not done anything, he hasn't got anything that you want!"

"Nope, he doesn't. We'll let him go safe and sound as soon as we're finished with you."

"You're _lying_. Don't you _dare_ touch him!"

"Well sweetheart it's a little too late for that, but Jesus Christ almighty relax – it's just a bump on the head, he'll be fine. And as for me lying, well now, that's not a very good assumption about my character on your part, now is it? You just met me," The man smirked and slipped the small camera back into his jacket pocket and stood up, sliding the chair out of the way and standing over her, "I can tell you right now that I might not be the nicest person, but if I'm anything at all I'm an honest man. Honestly, you're going to die. Honestly, your boyfriend is dead weight and we really don't need him around. We don't care if he goes to the police, who would believe this story? No need to make more work for ourselves than we need to, but if you would rather we do it that way then so be it. Even if he just said you were missing, we're not exactly _new_ at this," He grinned, showing his perfectly straight white teeth and leaned down putting his face close to Cleo's, "We will make you disappear. It's your choice." And with that, he strolled out of the room, locking the door behind him.

Cleo's body was frozen stiff and she let her eyes close. If she resisted, Nate would be killed. If she didn't, he'd be let go. Whoever that man was, he was right: nobody would believe Nate if he were let go; he'd pose no threat. They really _didn't_ need him. This really _was_ all on her. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter and bit her lip and felt two tears slip down each of her cheeks. This was it.

-

_**Next Door on Denman's Yacht**_

Cora sat up straight, glaring daggers at the man sitting across from her. She had awoken almost 30 minutes ago and found herself sitting up in a chair, her legs and body bound to it with chains and her hands tied behind her back and then secured to a metal pipe behind her. She almost cracked a smile – these people really thought she was a monster. Who knew, maybe she was. There was a cheap wooden table in front of her that was made of the thinnest plywood Cora had ever seen – less than 2 inches. Probably a makeshift just for her, just in case she decided to send it flying into someone it wouldn't do much damage. Sitting at the other end of the table was Zane Bennett, and from the throbbing in her stomach she could tell that he was nervous. In the half hour that she had been awake she hadn't said one word and neither had he. She could play this game better than he could – he was one of those people that talked simply to fill silence, when Cora had been quiet for the majority of the last 5 years. She kept watching him, her dark brown eyes never leaving his face. He looked horrible, and that wasn't even including the bruised bloody nose she'd given him by elbowing him in the face an hour or so ago. He looked sick, almost crazed; and from the pain she was feeling it was evident that he felt much worse than he looked.

Every few seconds he would shift his eyes to a new spot in the room never meeting her glance. He'd had his arms folded across his chest defensively since she came to, but after several minutes of staring at him she had managed to absorb some of his nerves – despite how disgusted she was with him at that moment, she still managed to empathize for her once-friend. After a few more seconds she raised her head, still glaring at him and Zane's arms unlocked from his chest and he rested his hands in his lap.

"Back in the restaurant… When you were on the couch convulsing… was that you having a vision?" He strained to make himself sound tough, but it was easy enough for Cora to see and feel that underneath this he was timid. She kept her eyes locked on him.

"Yes." She replied. She thought that he would be finished after that, but a few seconds passed and she heard his voice again.

"What… what did you see?" He asked. His question surprised her but she did her best not to let it show on her face. He wanted to know what she saw? Zane had never cared about her visions before. And then something huge dawned on Cora: Zane was beginning to doubt himself. He had to be wondering if she had seen Rikki in her vision; if Denman and her men were honest in their promise to spare Rikki in exchange for her, or if they had played him like a harp. Cora knew that he had been tricked; she'd seen it days ago but he was still unaware of it. She then realized that his doubt may be a huge advantage for her. Zane didn't have to know what or who she really saw in her vision, she just had to make him think that she saw something he wouldn't like; she felt horrible about manipulating his already fragile state of mind but the more broken he was, the less good he was to Denman. This had become a war, and she had to brace herself. She wasn't just surviving for herself; she was surviving for Lewis, for Cleo and Emma and Rikki.

Cora didn't move an inch and let her eyes continue to bore into his, keeping her expression cold.

"You know what I saw." She said flatly. Zane picked his head up and finally brought his eyes to meet Cora's: she had gotten him.

"Was it Rikki? Did they touch Rikki?!" He asked, leaning forward across the table now, his eyes wider. Just then, the door opened and a tall handsome man in perfectly pressed slacks and a button-down shirt entered the room holding a briefcase. Cora caught him frown at Zane and roll his eyes as he walked over towards them. She decided to say her piece quickly.

"You know what I saw, Zane." She said again, her voice firmer this time but quieter as the intimidating older man stood over them, putting the case down on the table and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. Zane appeared to not even notice the other man was there, but when he heard Cora's response he froze and stayed completely still for a moment and Cora felt a flood of pain hit her stomach for a brief second – the guilt-game had worked and now he was mulling over worst case scenarios; she could see it on his face. He sank back into his chair and was silent for another moment before casting his eyes back up at her.

"…Did it hurt?" He asked finally. Cora was surprised by the question again, but there was no reason to lie to him now. She clenched her jaw slightly and stared back at him hard.

"Yes." Her voice was quiet and serious and she watched an array of emotions cross Zane's face; guilt, fear, anger, worry. He was only shaken out of it when the tall man smacked him roughly in the back of the head.

"What the hell are you doing, Bennett?! Are you having _tea_ with this thing or are you taking care of what Denman asked you to do?!" The man walked over to Cora and tugged on her chains roughly, yanking them against the chair and the pipe to test their strength, "This was the best you could do?! You're useless, Bennett, I swear to God! I've got to clean up behind you _again_? This is fucking ridiculous."

"I just thought that—"

"It doesn't LOOK like you thought of anything, Bennett. Do you honestly think this is going to hold her?! Your job was to restrain her and keep her from using her abilities – they're strong as hell, this won't do a dam thing!"

"But I wrapped the chains so that… so that she couldn't move her hands or fingers… I figured that would be enough…"

"D'you have any idea how bad this makes me look? This is kindergarten shit, Zane, I'm in charge of you and you're gonna destroy my clout with Denman!"

"I'll do it better, I'll fix it – really."

"Wish I could believe you but I'm not putting _my_ ass on the line for _your_ mistakes. I'm handling this myself. Get over here." The man demanded, nodding his head towards Cora telling Zane to stand by her, "Free her hands and put them flat down on the table and hold them there." He gave Zane one quick death glare before digging through the case. Zane did what he was told and shifted his eyes to his superior curiously.

"What… what are you going to do?"

"These things center their powers to come out of their palms, yeah? I'm gonna interrupt the flow." The man pulled two short wide daggers from a slot in the briefcase and closed it, holding one in each hand. Cora stiffened and tried moving her hands only to have Zane grip her wrists harder holding her hands flat down against the tabletop. The more she strained the harder Zane squeezed, digging his fingers into her wrists hard enough to leave bruises. The man briefly glanced at the back of each of Cora's hands and flipped the knives in his hands gingerly, smirking as he caught them by the hilt. Without a second thought or a moment of remorse and drove each of them down, slicing through the center of Cora's hands and through the plywood tabletop pinning them to it.

The cry that the young mermaid let out echoed through the small, almost empty room as the surface of the shoddy table began to slowly stain deep red.

-

**A/N**: Can Lewis, Emma and Rikki get to Denman's yacht in time? What happens if they reach it, unknowing that Denman is awaiting their arrival with cruel intentions? Find out in chapter 11! 55 until 11, see you guys next time around! Stay happy, healthy, safe and take care everyone! : ]


	11. Escape Artists

**A/N**: Chapter 11! Read, enjoy, review! And if you haven't already, check out "The Setori Sisters' Secret" by ParadoxTremors. It's definitely worth a read! : ] take care everyone.

-

_**Emma**_

I hurried through the darkness of the docks behind Lewis, with Rikki behind me. The air was heavy and there was a certain uneasiness to it. I had seen earlier on the news that there was a bad storm coming our way, and it felt like the rain from it was calling me, letting me know that it was about to raise hell. I kept my eyes glued to Lewis's back; He was leading the way to Denman's yacht which was visible from half a mile away; the thing was huge and it looked more like a small cruise ship than a yacht. It would have been unbelievably beautiful if it weren't for the witch that owned it.

I creased my eyebrows together and cut my eyes, glaring at the ritzy vessel in the distance. For what we were about to do I was obscenely calm, especially for me. On the walk over, I had left Ash a voicemail telling him simply that I loved him and did the same for my parents and little brother. I didn't know what would happen to me, but I did know what could happen and I wanted to be prepared for the worst. My parents still had no idea about my tail and neither did Elliot, and I had absolutely _no_ intention of having _that_ be the last thing I told them. The messages took me less than 2 minutes to leave and once I was finished I shut my phone off and shoved it into my pocket. I never, ever turn my phone off. But something had happened to Rikki and I, something that we should be used to by now. Defender mode had switched on in full force and it wasn't showing any signs of coming down any time soon. Denman didn't just have one of us; she had two of us and an innocent person – Nate. It was almost like the full moon had hit us, Rikki and I – my inhibitions were gone and we only had one goal in mind: getting all of us back together, safely, in once piece.

I glanced at Lewis, who was walking a step ahead of me. Even though he wasn't half _fish_ like the four of us were, it was pretty easy to see that there had been a change in him. We were practically a family, and it was noticeable from the beginning that having Cora around changed him somehow. It was bound to happen sooner or later; after being pushed around for so many years there had to come a point where he was sick of dealing with people trying to pull things over on him and the people he cared about. After so many threats and so many people assuming he wouldn't fight back, it was no wonder that it had all boiled over now after we'd all been through so much. If I had been in his shoes I would have gotten tired of people thinking that I was weak, too.

I clenched my hands out of reflex as we approached the yacht. I looked up at it, scanning my eyes over it quickly; the lights were all off except for one, way down at the bottom. I saw Rikki crouch down a little next to it before standing back up and shaking her head. I ducked down briefly to take a look for myself; the window was blocked with a white sheet and we couldn't see anything. Lewis tugged his jacket down securely and turned back to face us, and nodded to the deck of the boat. We didn't need to be told what he meant; we could hear the yacht's engine running. Denman was definitely on this thing, and she was going to bring it out of the harbor. We crept closer to the small gate and made a quick check of what we could see of the deck – empty. Utterly and completely empty. We knew that there was something shady going on here, but we couldn't risk having this thing leave with our friends without us on it. Lewis led the way, staying close to the wall of the inner deck. I followed after him and hid against the wall next to him and reached out for Rikki, who jumped on next to me. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The second Rikki's feet touched the floor of the deck, I felt us start to move – the yacht was pulling out of the harbor. I exchanged a brief glance with Lewis and Rikki on either side of me. We needed to move.

We moved around to the other side of the massive deck finding the door to the stairs down to the lower level. It was quiet; too quiet, but we knew how Denman operated. She didn't need a team of 15 people in order to be dangerous. We watched Lewis start to head down the stairs first but Rikki reached past me and tugged him back to stop him. She gave him a fierce look as she passed him and started to slowly descend the stairs. The yacht was huge and we had no idea just how many levels there were, who was waiting for us or where our friends were but we knew that we had to find them and fast. Once Rikki reached the bottom of the stairs I saw her glance in either direction before waving Lewis and I down. We followed after her and started on what we knew was a dangerous trip through unfamiliar enemy territory.

*

We had been moving for a while and even though we hadn't come across anybody yet, our guards were still up in full force. Linda Denman wasn't stupid; she had planned for this. She had planned for us to come, and even though she might not have known exactly where we _were_, she certainly knew that we were there to save our friends. When she or her lackeys sprang on us we'd just have to react, and be ready.

We were edging our way down a dark unlit hallway when we heard something muffled coming from one of the doors on our right. Lewis motioned for us to stop moving and pressed his ear up against the door before pushing the lock-release button and pulling it open. There, in the room not much bigger than a closet, was Nate – tied into a metal folding chair with knots like ones I've never seen in my life, blindfolded and gagged. Breathing a sigh of relief Lewis immediately started pulling the blindfold and gag off of Nate and Rikki made her way into the closet to start cutting away at the ropes with her pocket-knife. I stood in the doorway of the closet facing the hallway, watching for any unwanted visitors. The second Nate realized that it was just us he calmed down.

"Thank god it's you guys! They've got Cleo, they… they drugged me, they made me leave her a message… I think they've got Zane, too – I heard his voice, I know I did, he sounded upset."

A pause filled the air and I heard Lewis sigh as he helped Nate up out of the chair quickly.

"They didn't kidnap him, Nate – he's _one_ of them. He _works_ for Denman; he's the one that brought Cora in." I heard Lewis's voice shake a little and bit my lip briefly as I watched realization wash over Nate's face.

"He really snapped, then. I can't believe it," His voice sounded so sad, and I felt a little pang of guilt – Zane was Nate's best friend and I knew that he hadn't wanted to admit that there was something wrong with Zane even when we all knew there was, and this was a horrible way to realize the truth. I watched his face blank momentarily but he shook it off quickly and looked at Lewis, "We started moving, didn't we? I can _feel_ this thing moving. I've gotta find Cleo, they want to hurt her… God I don't even want to think about _what_ they want to do… This is all my fault; I can't _believe_ I gave in."

"You were _drugged_, Nate – this isn't your fault in the slightest, don't even try talking like that," Rikki said sharply, letting the rest of the ropes drop to the floor of the closet, "And you're not going to find anybody by yourself. I'll come with you."

"Rikki's right," I heard Lewis's voice in the dimness of the hallway next, "Splitting up is our best bet for now, at least. Rikki, you stay with Nate – Emma and I will take off the other way. And Nate… take this." I saw Lewis reach under his jacket and very discreetly pass Zane's gun to Nate. Nate blinked down at it and I could tell that even in the dark he recognized his friend's property right away.

"Where did you get this?"

"He dropped it in the restaurant when he _took_ her," Lewis was speaking through his teeth now but I could hear that he was trying to keep himself calm; it wasn't Nate he was after, after all, "I'm not telling you to use this, but if you have to…" He trailed off, "You know that these people _are_ killers, Nate." It was silent for a second and then Nate nodded.

"I know. But I'm not going to let them touch her," He muttered as he and Rikki stepped out into the hall with Lewis and I. He stared at Rikki for a second and then looked up at Lewis. Even though it was dark, I could feel the hesitation in the air, "What's our plan?"

"You two head that way. Stay hidden and keep quiet. Rikki is great at creating distractions if you run into anybody, but if things turn ugly be as safe as you possibly can. If you find Cleo and Cora, get them down to the lower deck fast."

"What if we're too far out by then?" He asked. I felt strange buzzing in my skull. It may not have been a full moon, but the storm was messing with us; Rikki and I could both feel it. This was going to be a bad one. If Denman was smart, she wouldn't pull this boat out too far out into the ocean in the midst of a huge storm. However, with as reckless and ruthless as she'd gotten this time around I could never be certain I answered before Lewis even had a chance

"Let us worry about that." I said, glancing quickly at Rikki. She said nothing, but I knew she shared the same feeling that I was having; a strange kind of safe pressure from the incoming storm. I couldn't place what it was. I should be terrified – storms meant rain, rain meant tails and _tails_ meant a major bruise in our plan to escape the yacht once we found Cleo and Cora. But for whatever reason, I of all people wasn't too worried. It didn't look like Rikki was either. I saw Lewis eye me curiously, but I kept my eyes fixed firmly on Nate. He seemed convinced by my words. It was quiet for a quick second and Lewis spoke up again.

"All right. You two, head that way. Be careful, the both of you. We'll see you down there." He said and nodded Rikki and Nate off. They turned and after a few seconds we couldn't see them anymore in the dark hallway. Lewis and I headed off in the opposite direction and I hadn't taken 5 steps before I felt the boat shift uneasily on the water and I had to reach out and steady myself on the wall. The storm was picking up.

_**Cora**_

I heard banging on the pipe behind me and I picked my head up a little. The banging hadn't come from my side. I slid my eyes open slightly and winced at the sight of my hands pinned to the table in front of me. There was a lot of blood but I could see that it wasn't anywhere near an amount that I should be concerned with. I was more concerned with the fact that the knife in my left hand had gone through sideways – straight through the middle. I didn't want to even think about how wide the blade was but I knew it had to have gone through at least one bone; I could feel my hand throbbing already. My fingers were trembling and I tried hard to stop them – the injuries were excruciating but were more painful if I moved my hands or fingers at all.

I bit my lip and shut my eyes again letting my head droop back down, trying to block it out. I realized that the pain from the knives in my hands had completely taken over the pain in my stomach from my brief meeting with Zane a minute ago. My throat felt raw. I didn't remember screaming when I was stabbed but I must have. I swallowed hard and ground my teeth together a little. I thought back to my vision from earlier and immediately felt nauseous. I needed to find Cleo, to prevent what I had seen from happening to her…

Then I heard the banging on the pipe again. This time, though, I heard a voice along with it. A scared, familiar voice that was muffled through the wall.

"Is someone there?!"

_Cleo_. I immediately leaned back in the chair I was in and gasped as the knives in my hands tugged at the end of my arms, keeping me from moving any further. I closed my eyes and bit down hard on my lip and gave my arms a quick tug as I tried to turn my body to the side to better face the wall behind me, dragging the cheap table with me. I shuddered a little when I realized the slight movement had caused another trickle of blood to seep out between my right hand and the table. Very carefully tilting my chair forward, I let it bang back against the pipe behind me.

"Cleo! Are you all right – are you hurt?!"

"I'm fine, just tied up. I heard a scream, are you in there alone? They've got Nate, they took him in because of me." I heard her voice and I could tell that she was crying. I felt the pain in my stomach throb again and got a little dizzy. I turned my head as far to the side as I could to examine the wall. Just next to the pipe was a tiny crack that I could see light shining through and just a tiny strand of curly brown hair.

"Yeah…" I accidentally felt my hands flinch and had to hold back a yell, "I'm alone. I'm gonna get you out of there, Cleo…" I tried to think as fast as I could, "What have they tied you with?"

"It feels like it's just thin rope." She responded. I paused for a second and looked down at myself. She had rope? I had _chains_ hanging off of my legs and chair.

"Oh come on; _really_?!" She had rope? I had _chains_ hanging off of my legs and chair, and my hands had been chained up at the beginning as well. They really weren't taking their chances when it came to me, were they. I groaned and shut my eyes for a second and started thinking again. This was going to make me slower in trying to free her and so I silently hoped that I wouldn't screw up. I had to move fast no matter how much it hurt. My eyes darted around the room quickly; it was empty and so I didn't have a ton of options, "Okay, Cleo… Just hang on for a minute, okay?"

"Okay…" She sounded so uneasy and I felt my stomach throb again.

I bit my lip and stared down at the table, knowing what it was that I had to do. I straightened sitting forward in my chair and looked down at the knives. I leaned down and took the handle of the knife in my left hand between my teeth and bit down as firmly as I could. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes and yanked my head upward as fast as I could. The feeling of the blade slicing back through my flesh was agonizing but now that I knew that Cleo could hear me, my body wouldn't let me scream. It was like the stupid Protector gene could tell that it would make her nervous and the sound just wouldn't come out. I dropped the knife out of my mouth back to the table and immediately took the other one, ripping it out just as fast. My stomach lurched nauseously and I let out a small yelp, quiet enough so that I wouldn't be heard and I dropped the second one as well.

I winced and looked down at my hands and realized I was panting; my left hand was swelling a little and I thought of the broken bone, but thankfully the knife that had cut through my right hand appeared to have just gone through flesh. My body shuddered hard and my now very bloody hands shook as I picked them up. Free from the table now I turned around in my chair to face the wall. I had something important to take care of.

"Cleo… I need you to stand up if you can and move as far to the other side of the crack as possible, okay?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. I looked down and realized that my hands were still bleeding.

"Okay, I'm there." I heard her respond. For a second, I felt the pain in my stomach go away and I smiled slightly – she trusted me. I was calming her down a little. I bit my lip slightly and stood up out of the chair. The second my hands were down at my sides they started throbbing like crazy and felt very, very warm. I shuddered a little and picked them up quickly. I eyed the wall between Cleo and I and cautiously raised my hands. I tried to clench my fingers.

"_Gah_…" I muttered quietly and winced, then tried shaking off the pain and gently pressed my hands up against the wall. I didn't know what I was doing exactly but I concentrated hard. I had one goal in mind and that goal was to get to Cleo. My skull was buzzing and my mind was sharp and I knew that I had to be in full blown Protector mode. I sighed and closed my eyes and felt the wall begin to tremble slightly in the places that I was touching it. I opened my eyes and raised my eyebrows. 'Well, if this was doing what I want it to do, then…' I ran my hands down the wall almost to the floor leaving long red streaks on the paint. I smirked a little. It was a small satisfaction but if there were ever a person who deserved a bloodstained wall it was Linda Denman. The wall continued to tremble and once I left the trail I pressed my hands firmly in the center of it. After a few seconds, I felt the wall start to crumble away under my hands as if I had punched through it. I slid my eyes shut and concentrated harder and before I knew it there was a decent-sized, albeit rough-looking hole in the wall.

I quickly looked down at the chains still hanging from my ankles holding me into the chair and started pulling them apart as fast as I could. It hurt badly to do much of anything with my hands but Cleo was waiting for me and I couldn't let her down. I grabbed the bloody knives from the table once I was free from the chair and stood up, still keeping my hands level with my chest and jumped through the hole, landing on my feet on the floor of Cleo's room. The thud of the landing made my hands throb again and I grimaced but turned to face Cleo.

"Cora!" I heard her sigh and the pain in my stomach ceased for a second and then came back. I ignored it and used one of the knives to cut through the ropes binding her hands together to the pipe. The act of using my hands to cut them was excruciating but luckily because of how sharp the blades were I only had to nick the ropes in order for them to pop off of her hands. Once I was done I let the ropes drop to the floor and the second she was free I felt Cleo throw her arms around me, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much Cora! We have to go find Nate, I—" She stopped herself from talking and I saw her eyes start to move down. I quickly realized that I was still bleeding and tried to move my hands around behind me before she noticed but it was too late. I felt my stomach lurch painfully as I watched her face fall sadly. Cleo's sad face was an absolute killer. "What… what happened to you?" I saw her reach out for my arms and I winced a little, trying to hold them back. She grabbed them anyway and I sighed and tried to keep my hands up in an attempt to not _bleed_ all over my friend.

"We can worry about it later, all right?" I smiled a little in an attempt to calm her down and turned quickly and walked towards the door of the room. I jiggled the handle and found it locked, of course, "Damn."

"Wait… Give me one of those knives!" Cleo said. I blinked and handed her one of the blades, kind of embarrassed at the fact that I couldn't hold them properly.

"What are you going to do? Be careful with it, it's… really, really sharp." I winced at the memory and blinked down at my hands that were still shaking. I hissed a little at them. I realized the shaking was probably due to the nerves being severed and now they're panicking. _'Ugh. Sorry for getting you hurt, but please come through for me, Cleo needs you…' _I thought, frustrated. Cleo looked at me and smiled and I watch as she slid the blade of the knife into the space between the door and the doorframe right below the lock and started carefully jiggling it around.

"I will be, don't worry." She reassured me. I felt my eyes get wider and I stared at her in disbelief.

"Cleo… you know how to jimmy locks?!" I asked. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; sweet little Cleo knew how to jimmy locks? She blushed a little and I felt bad for embarrassing her.

"Rikki taught me."

"That… makes more sense." I smirked a little and cradled my hands up to my chest. Maybe if I kept mentally asking them to cooperate with me despite the wounds, they would? I sighed – wishful thinking. In another second the lock clicked and Cleo carefully pulled the door open.

"We've got to find Nate." She said and I watched her look out into the hallway. Just seeing the worry on her face killed me and the painful knot in my stomach grew.

"We'll find him Cleo, I promise." I kept my voice calm and quiet and my hands throbbed as I stepped out into the hallway in front of her. I looked into the empty dark hallway and stood against the wall. I saw that she tried to come up next to me and stopped short, staying behind me.

"Cora… you're doing it again!"

"Doing what?"

"Your powers won't let me stand with you!" She said, pouting. I felt my cheeks get warm a little and I looked down, feeling another pang of guilt. I didn't realize that the Protector in me wouldn't let her come in front of me; it was like I had no control over it but I wasn't complaining. I was responsible for her, and there was no way I was going to let her get hurt on my watch. I cradled my hands against my chest and glanced down the dark hall. We could feel the boat rocking pretty badly and I knew that it was making her uneasy.

"Sorry… I can't switch it off. Come on, let's go find him." I started moving down the hall a few steps and heard Cleo speak after a second.

"This way." I heard her say, peering down the hall in the opposite direction. I tilted my head to the side; I wouldn't question her instincts, but I was curious, "I just have a better feeling about going this way to find him." She said quietly. I stood still for a second and nodded once before heading past her again, my Protector gene keeping her behind me again and head down the hallway quietly in the other direction.

My heart ached and I shut my eyes briefly. I knew that Lewis was safe, wherever he was – I could feel it. None of the people that I loved were hurt or being hurt and sensing that thankfully helped my nerves let up. However, now it was just a matter of keeping them all that way. We reached the end of the hall and turned the corner and I bit my lip slightly. A big part of me wished that Lewis, Emma and Rikki hadn't been drawn onto this boat. A big part of me wished that they were safe at home, that Lewis was in watching television for the night; that Emma and Rikki were in their apartment doing their homework. But an even bigger part of me knew that they were after us. The part of me that now knew they needed us. I glanced back at Cleo almost to make sure that she was still there and took a short breath to brace myself as the yacht swayed on the water a little harder. I sighed quietly and shuddered, letting my thoughts drift to Lewis and felt the dull pain from my stomach flood into my chest.

'_Wherever you are, Lewis, please don't do anything crazy until I can get to you…'_

-


	12. Torn

**A/N**: Thank you all for bearing with me with the long delays! I am super thankful that you've all been so patient with me and stuck with me and that no one has written me any angry messages about the time between chapters, LOL! I really appreciate you guys for understanding. Finals are coming up, and in college we call it "hell week" for a reason. Except… for me, it's more of a month than a week. So thanks for bearing with me! I'm sorry for the delays, but understand that this is an incredibly busy time with research and papers and projects and…yikes, I'm dizzy just THINKING about it! Please know that I am writing in any free time that I have, just for you guys : ] it's coming slowly, but I'm working as best as I can for you guys and I hope I don't disappoint! But anyhow, thank you so much everyone, I appreciate it and hope you'll continue to read!

Thank you guys – in this chapter, the escape is so close. Our friends are back together, but what happens when they are torn apart again and another life is held in the balance? Read, enjoy, review : ]

-

Linda Denman stood on the lower deck of her yacht, grinning as the salt water from the choppy ocean storm misted her in the face. Her long blonde hair was tossed around in the wind as she strolled up and down the length of the deck, sighing contently. She cast her eyes to the door leading off into a room at the side of the deck and grinned. She had built onto that room especially for this occasion. Once the door opened it led to a room small room that dropped straight down about 10 feet into the room below it. Encased in a large steel lockable box was a deep pool of water that could be opened from the room below.

Denman had designed this box herself – it was absolutely flawless when it came to trapping the mermaids and keeping them just where she wanted them until she would personally destroy each of them herself. She smirked and rolled her eyes, thinking back to the first time around that she'd had Cora. She'd managed to get quite a lot of information from the little brat, and between her and the files she stole from Max Thomas's house she'd found that the mermaids couldn't use their powers to effect anything outside of the room that they were in. Of course if they were outside and not confined to a room there was no limit to the chaos they could cause, but once they were held in this impenetrable box they wouldn't have anything to do but wait for death to come.

She grinned and leaned against the wall next to the door and sighed, bored, as the wind picked up and tossed her hair around. The yacht bounced up and down on the water a little more roughly now and she let out a bored sigh. She was more than aware that the McCartney boy and the other two mermaids, Emma and Rikki were somewhere down below on the yacht. That's precisely why she was waiting safely outside – waiting for them to finish wreaking havoc down there, and just when they thought they were finished and free she would take them. Was she worried about what the girls could do to John and Eric with their abilities? No. They had known the risks when they signed up, and if they couldn't handle it then they wouldn't be getting paid. She rolled her eyes again and thought about the boyfriends of the mermaids. The stupid boys were a minor inconvenience, but they were far from being a worry for Denman. Once the girls were secured, she'd get rid of them as well. It wouldn't be difficult or messy – by that time, they would be too far out at sea for any of them to swim to shore in that storm. Dr. Denman smiled and sighed and continued her patient pace across the deck.

-

_**Lewis**_

Emma and I had only been searching for a few minutes when we saw an open door at the end of the hallway. The second I saw it I got a weird feeling in my stomach – it didn't hurt, but for some reason it made me nervous. I knew there was something in that room that I didn't want to see, but for whatever reason I kept moving. I looked at Emma who wasn't looking back at me – she was frozen in her spot staring straight ahead at the same open door. I sighed and we came up next to the door silently and I stood in front of Emma, waiting. I listened carefully for a few seconds and couldn't hear anyone or anything coming out of the room but I kept my hand behind my back and let my fingers brush my gun anyway. I closed my eyes for a second and reached out with my free hand to shove the door the rest of the way open leaving Emma and I standing in the doorway.

The nervous feeling in my stomach grew. This room was mostly empty except for a folding chair that was propped up against the wall. I stepped into the room and upon further inspection I felt my stomach flip. Something had happened here – there were cut ropes hanging down around a pipe up against the wall, and the wall itself had a huge hole smashed through it leading into another room. I felt my jaw clench and I moved across the room, picking up the ropes. They had definitely been cut with something – the knots were still in them and these were some of the most complicated knots I'd ever seen in my life, even after 10 years as a boy scout. I hissed a little and knew that this had to be where one of the girls was kept. I dropped the ropes and switched my attention to the hole in the wall and looked through it.

The first thing that I saw made immediately replaced the nerves in my stomach with a boiling burning in my chest. There was blood everywhere; a lot of it. I stepped through the hole and looked at the wall. There was blood around it, blood on the floor, on one of the chairs in the room. There was a cheap plywood table nearby and the entire surface was completely crimson. Through the middle of the bloodstained table were two thin splintered holes. I felt my face blank and my eyes moved to the pipe next to the hole. On this side, there wasn't any rope. On this side of the wall there was a rat's nest of chains hanging off of the pipe and chair. I felt my hands shake and I lifted one up to steady myself briefly before smacking the side of my fist against the wall. There was only one person that Denman's team would go to _this_ much trouble to restrain.

"Cora."

"Lewis…" I heard Emma behind me. I knew she was unnerved by all the blood – Emma Gilbert was not a blood person, "You don't know that it was her…"

I could tell she was trying to calm me down. I wasn't used to being this angry and even more than that, I knew she wasn't used to me being this angry and I think that I had started to scare her. I had honestly started to scare myself, too, so I kept my voice level for both of our sakes.

"I _do_ know, Emma. So do you. She was here… right here," I reached out for the chair but couldn't bring myself to actually touch it, "They're afraid of her abilities; they think she's an _animal_. She wouldn't hurt anybody even if she _could_!" I sighed and stepped back into the room that we had come in through. I didn't want to look at what I knew was my girlfriend's blood anymore. I took a quick glance at the cut ropes again, "Cleo was probably here. Denman underestimates her big time, giving her fucking shoddy rope…"

"But that means they've gotten out!"

"What?" I asked. My brain was scrambled and I wasn't thinking straight. She turned away from the blood and looked at me.

"Lewis, look – Cora might be hurt but she's alive. I doubt she'd be able to put this hole through the wall if she were hurt too badly. And you saw it yourself – Cleo's ropes were cut, not untied. They're out on the yacht, somewhere!" She said. Then it dawned on me – she was right. Both of them were out here somewhere, and by this time they undoubtedly knew we were here looking for them. But that meant that we had to move faster in order to find them, now. I sighed, ready to turn around and then heard a familiar voice.

"How did… But she was _stuck;_ they weren't supposed to be able to get out! He'll kill me when he finds out, he'll kill me…"

I turned around and in the doorway I saw a very dazed, very confused Zane. I didn't even realize I was moving toward him but I felt myself shove him up against the wall. Before I knew what I was doing I felt my fist that had been balled up for an hour now come in contact with his jaw.

"What did you do to them, Zane?!" I screamed at him. He was fazed by the hit for a second, flexing his jaw a few times quickly to work it out but the minute he caught his bearings he started rambling.

"I-I didn't want to hurt anybody! But they made me; they _made_ me help! Rikki… where is she? She said she saw her - Is she okay?!" He sounded frantic. He was rambling and not making a lot of sense and he looked sick. I knew that he had snapped, now even worse before, but the urge to take his head off hadn't exactly subsided. I felt my hands clench and my arm drew back again, but I immediately felt Emma's hands on my shoulders, pulling me back and away from Zane.

"Lewis… he's not well. They tricked him badly; it's best to keep him out of trouble for now." She whispered, staring at me. I clenched my jaw and sighed – she was right. As usual. I rolled my eyes and grabbed Zane by the arm, dragging him out of the room back in the direction that we had come from; back towards the closet that we had found Nate in.

"Come on Zane. We'll take you to Rikki."

-

_**A few minutes later – Cleo**_

"They were here a few minutes ago… they were _just_ here." I heard Cora say from in front of me. She had stopped walking and we stood in front of a door in a dark hallway now. I shifted uneasily in my spot and bit my lip. Something felt wrong. I had known that Nate had been here; I had felt it just a few minutes ago but now the feeling was gone. That made me nervous. I stayed quiet though and listened, just in case. I thought I heard some rustling from inside the room and I reached out quickly to open the door but Cora's powers wouldn't let me. I frowned and looked at her and she smiled sheepishly. I knew she couldn't control it, but _still_! She listened for a minute too and after a second I saw one of her pretty banged up hands reach for the handle. In another second the door was open and we were both frozen in our spots.

Zane was sitting up tied into a chair inside the small closet, staring at us. The look on his face was absolutely frightening – in all the years I'd known him I have never seen him look like this. Scared, sick, pale, angry and his nose was bruised and swollen… I didn't know what to make of it. I felt sad looking at him; for as much of a psychopath as he'd turned into, he was my friend once. He'd only gotten wrapped up in this mess because he was trying to keep Rikki and the rest of us out of harm's way, but the second that thought hit me I felt my mouth falter into a frown. There was a weird buzzing at the back of my head and I let my eyes travel down to Cora's hands. Something had gone _through_ them – and Zane had been the one willing to give Cora to Denman in "exchange" for the rest of it. And he was dumb enough to believe that? And Denman said _I_ was the dumb one?! I clenched my jaw and suddenly felt angry. I looked at Cora who stumbled a little the minute her eyes hit him and I realized that she was feeling whatever he was feeling.

"Rikki! You have to tell me what they're going to do to Rikki – I need to know what you saw! How can I help, what can I do to stop them?!" He blurted out. I felt my mouth drop open a little; I had never heard him sound like this. He sounds… terrified, and the fact that somebody had tied him up in here kind of unnerved me. I saw Cora step back a little from him but I don't think she meant to. From what I've learned this empathy thing can hurt pretty bad, so I reached out to help her stand straight.

"Thanks, Cleo," I heard her say and she smiled a little, then stood on her own. The yacht was rocking pretty badly now and I frowned a little, thinking. Because my father is a fisherman, I grew up around a lot of boats. This may have been a little nicer than a fishing boat but _nothing_ should be out on the water in a storm like this. With as rough as this water feels Denman is running a major risk in putting a crack in the hull…

The yacht bounced on the waves again and we held ourselves up against the wall. We stared down at Zane and for a minute and I glanced quickly at my friend. For a second she looked sad, and then she spoke again.

"Zane… listen to me. There is nothing you can do to help Rikki right now. That guy… the one that smacked you before… he's going to be really, really upset when he finds out that we're missing. You need to stay out of the way." I watched her kneel down a little and put her hands on his arms. He immediately stopped fidgeting and stared up at her and for a weird second it looked like he was going to cry. I realized that she was using the empathy ability right now to calm him down and I watched carefully and felt my eyebrow go up; I'd never seen her do it to somebody else before.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry for what we did to you..." He said quietly. She smirked a little and stood up straight again, taking her hands off of him.

"I'm sorry for what I did to your nose. Stay quiet in here, Zane. We'll come back for you." And with that, she closed the door quietly. I stared at her for a minute and she continued leading the way down the hallway.

"He's really snapped now, hasn't he? He's really one of them. Is _he_ the one that did that to you?" I asked. She glanced back at me briefly and smiled sadly.

"He's going to need a lot of help once he gets out of here. He is one of them, but for the wrong reasons… He's safer in there than out here. These guys really _would_ kill him. And it wasn't all his doing. Come on, we can't be too far behind them if they were just here, right?" She smiled awkwardly at me and we kept walking. I looked back at the room we had just left Zane in and shuddered. The ship was rocking a little harder now but I knew that Nate had been here, and I knew that he was still here somewhere – looking for us. I smiled a little at the thought but a nervous knot tugged in my stomach anyway. The buzzing in the back of my head and neck had gotten stronger and I frowned. Most of the people that I loved were here on this yacht. And so is a person who has the means and the intent to kill all of us. I looked ahead of me and noticed that Cora was staggering a little too much even for how rough the water was.

"Hey, are you all right?" I asked, but she kept walking anyway and so I kept following her. I felt a nice warmth start to flood my chest as we approached a door ahead of us on our left and smiled a little – Nate was close, I could feel it. And not just Nate, but the rest of my friends, too! "Hey… Cora, I think… I think they're close. _Really_ close, I mean… to all of them."

"I'm okay, don't worry. And I think you're right, Cleo." She turned a little and smiled back at me and we stopped outside of the small steel door that led out to the lower deck of the yacht and gave me a worried look. Her eyes went back to the floor and I saw her squeeze her eyes shut and lean against the wall a little more. I didn't want her to have to use her hands if she didn't have to, so I started reaching for the door's handle. The second I raised my hand I couldn't move it any further. I sighed and frowned a little, looking at her. Her smile faltered and she didn't say anything to me this time but I saw one of her hands go for the handle and I saw her wince when she pulled it open.

I sighed in relief when I saw that the door led to the lower deck of the yacht. After creeping through the maze of hallways for the past 45 minutes, seeing an open space was a nice change. Cora stepped out first and I followed after her and we stood still on the deck for a moment, bracing ourselves from the rocking by hanging onto the bars against the exterior walls. It was raining badly now and the waves were really choppy. I heard a metallic snap coming from somewhere down below and immediately got even more nervous. That… could not have meant anything good. I looked at Cora who was standing perfectly still with her eyes shut. Her eyebrows were pushed together in concentration and for a second I could feel her mental hold on me break – I could move where I wanted! But that meant that her mind was somewhere else; she had to have been having a vision. I moved around her and started looking around the deck. It was eerily quiet apart from the storm and felt my jaw clench. Something was off, here. I could feel that my friends were here and if _I_ could feel it then I knew that Cora could. And yet, we were standing by ourselves on the deck?

In another split second a few things happened. Cora's hold snapped back over me and pushed me down and around the corner slightly behind a web of ropes. My eyes flew to her. She had just started to come out of the vision and her face had gone from concentration to straight to dread but she was still rather out of it. We weren't alone anymore. Before I could form my mouth around any words at all I saw a tall blonde-haired figure approach my friend from behind.

-

-

_**On the deck of the yacht**_

Cleo watched in horror as Linda Denman pulled a thin rope around her still momentarily distracted friend's neck. She tried to sit up as she saw Dr. Denman yanking Cora in the direction of a doorway, and through the doorway Cleo could clearly see what looked like a pool – with no ladders, and no way to get out. She saw a steel latch at the far end of the room and it dawned on her: this room was meant to close and _lock,_ undoubtedly with she, Cora, Rikki and Emma inside.

Cleo's heart raced and she had to think fast. She knew she was no genius but despite Dr. Denman's belief, she wasn't stupid either. She still couldn't move; Cora wouldn't let her move out of her hiding place. Cleo bit her lip and let her eyes dart around quickly as she thought back to what Rikki had told she and Emma about getting Cora to keep herself from being shot and killed in Lewis's 'test.' She had to do the same thing; get Cora to snap into some Defender tendencies – but how? She thought hard about what Rikki had said:

"_He told me to focus. Focus really hard on how we couldn't lose her as one of us and the fact that I didn't want the bullet to kill her."_

Cleo panicked – could it really be that simple? Cora's Protector gene was out of control and she knew it would be hard to break through but she had to try. Cleo bit down on her lip again and closed her eyes, her face screwing up in concentration. She focused hard but still felt her friend's mental hold over her. Cleo groaned a little and focused harder, letting her thoughts scream out in her head. After the sacrifices that Cora had made for her and the others, Cleo couldn't let her friend down now. She pressed herself further until she felt dizzy and suddenly, as if a rubber band around her had snapped, Cora's hold over Cleo broke. The instant she was free Cleo beamed – it had worked! She opened her eyes and saw that although Cora was struggling and making things rather difficult for Dr. Denman, she was still close to the doorway to the trap-pool. Cleo's face immediately fell and she got up out of her hiding spot quickly. She approached Denman from behind as quietly as possible and grinned when she was a foot away from the blonde scientist. With a quick tap on the shoulder Denman's concentration was momentarily broken, causing her to let up slightly on her grip on the rope around the front of Cora's neck. In that second of distraction Cleo delivered the roughest kick she could muster to Dr. Denman's side, knocking her off of Cora and sending the woman flying to the violently rocking deck of the yacht.

"Who's the stupid one now, Linda?" Cleo hissed at the woman quickly and hurried to her friend, pulling her upright. Cleo blinked up squinting past the deck's ceiling at the rain that was pouring down. With a quick clench of her fingers she pushed the created a barrier that pushed the rain up around she and her friend, and in another second both girls hurried out into the storm and around the corner of the deck out of the scientist's sight.

Linda Denman was only down for a moment, however. John hurried out onto the deck from below it, squinting his eyes from the storm's violent winds. The man was soaked and there was panic in his eyes. He staggered across the deck to Dr. Denman and helped her up.

"Linda… there's a major crack in the hull, it's getting bigger by the minute. We're taking on a lot of water down there, we should try to get as close to land before we take the life-boats—" He began but Dr. Denman cut him off.

"We're not going anywhere, John! I've got these kids and we're not letting them go now because of a crack. Are you a professional or not?!"

"Denman, this thing could sink any—"

"_Are_ you?!" She screamed. The rain soaked her hair and she stared daggers at the man through the water. The man stared at the woman blankly for a second before grunting a little.

"_Yes_, I'm a professional!" He yelled back at her through the storm. Dr. Denman seethed, casting her eyes to the other side of the deck where she had seen the two girls go. Her mouth twitched up into a grin.

"Good, that's what I thought. Come on." She growled at him, storming across the deck through the rain. Eric followed after her.

_**Cora**_

Everything had happened so fast, I had barely realized what had happened until I felt Cleo pull me away.

"Who's the stupid one now, Linda?" I heard Cleo say and in another second we were moving. I perked my head up and blinked down at her; there was so much about what had just happened that I couldn't even figure out where to start.

"You… you _broke_ it!" I blurted out. She'd broken through the mental hold my Protector gene grasped her with. It had only been snapped twice before by other people and I _still_ didn't know how to control it on my own. Either way, I didn't love the idea but I realized that Cleo had been acting on her own Defender instincts – in order to get me to act on mine. I looked at Cleo and she was smirking a little bit.

"Sorry, Cora. I know you hate it, but look – I'm fine, see? And you're fine, too! And hopefully, Denman has a broken rib." Her smirk had turned into a full blown grin. I felt my mouth drop open a little bit. This girl was absolutely unpredictable and it was… _awesome_.

"You're a life-saver, Cleo. Thank you so much. I'll make it up to you somehow—"

"Shut up, Cora." She cut me off and smiled at me as we moved around to the other side of the deck. I let my mouth hang open but I smiled back. I felt my fingers twitch slightly and winced – my nerves were still in panic-mode from being cut and I shuddered, trying to keep them as still as possible. I glanced behind us briefly just in time to see Denman and her lackey hurrying after us. I made a quick survey of the deck and prepared myself for pain as I started to clench my fingers.

Just then we saw two familiar figures hurry out from around the opposite side of the covered deck. I saw Cleo immediately run for Nate and Rikki stopped at my side and threw her hands out in front of her. In an instant she was supporting a wall of fire splitting us away from Denman and her man. I was thrilled to see the both of them and glad that they were both all right but a knot in my stomach made my face fall – Lewis was still missing, and so was Emma.

Through the flames I was able to see Denman and her _minion_ trying to find an opening in the fire. After a few seconds I heard Denman bark orders at him.

"What am I paying you for?! Go down there and _fix_ it!" In another second, she was facing us alone. Cleo and I had heard something earlier – it had sounded like the bursting of steel, and I didn't need three guesses to know that this yacht was going down. We had already sunk considerably lower than we'd originally been and the waves were only a few feet below us, now. My heart ached a little and my eyes darted around. I had all the faith in the world in Lewis, but I would just feel so much better if I could see him for myself…

"Rikki, Cora! This thing is gonna sink, we need to unhook one of the lifeboats before they go under, too!" Nate's voice broke me out of my thoughts and I flicked my eyes to him and nodded.

"You and Cleo go. Rikki and I can hold her off." I said, exchanging a brief glance with Rikki. Cleo's eyes bulged a little and she stared at me.

"Cora your _hands_--!" She started, but it was my turn to cut her off. It was too late, however, and Rikki's eyes flicked down to my bloody, swollen, throbbing and generally unattractive-at-the-moment hands and bulged.

"Holy hell – what happened to you?!"

"They'll be fine – hurry up, Nate's right; I don't think we have a lot of time before this thing goes under." I said. The two of them looked at Rikki and I for a moment but nodded quickly and in another second they were off, leaving Rikki and I trying to keep our balance on the roughly rocking deck. I held my hands up towards the fire and flexed my fingers, clenching my jaw hard to keep from screaming. I concentrated on Denman, watching her through the flames. This woman would _not_ be getting through if I had anything to do with it, and if she did then she was going to get an anchor in her face.

Suddenly I felt the knot in my stomach falter and had a warm comforting feeling flood my chest.

"Lewis?" I heard the word slip out of my mouth without realizing what I had said and my eyes darted around. He was here; I knew it. My head snapped in the direction of the door that Cleo and I had come through just a few minutes ago and in that instant I saw Emma leap through it with Lewis following right on her heels. They spotted us immediately and rushed over so fast that I barely had time to breathe before I felt arms wrapping around me and I was squeezed – tightly. I smiled and for a few seconds the pain in my abdomen completely melted away. He was safe, and so was Emma. I let myself cling to him despite the pain in my hands, almost afraid that if I let go, he would disappear. After Lewis let up his grip he kept one of his arms around my waist and we turned, the four of us watching Denman pace back and forth behind the wall of fire. However, she wasn't alone anymore. Another taller man had replaced Denman's other subordinate. I stared hard at him for a second and a very uneasy feeling washed over me; I was feeling what he was feeling, and his rage and ill-intent was even stronger than Denman's. I felt goose-bumps cover my arms. He was driven by greed. This man was just as bad, if not worse, than Dr. Denman. I instinctively felt my mental hold pull over Lewis, pulling him gently just a few more inches away. I reminded myself to try to stay calm but _holy crap_ was that easier said than done. I shuddered a little and Rikki's voice drew my eyes away from Denman's little friend.

"Good to see that at least _you_ two are in one piece," She said, looking at Lewis and Emma quickly. I sighed and silently begged Rikki not to draw any _more_ attention to my hands. She was quiet for a second before speaking again, and for a split-second I could feel worry radiating from her, "Where's Zane?"

I saw Lewis exchange a look with Emma.

"We found him. We thought it would be better to keep him out of the way…for his own good." He said. I felt my stomach lurch and I knew that he was mad. For the moment, I decided that maybe it would be best if I just…kinda… kept my hands hidden behind my back.

'_No sense in making it worse, Cora. There will be time for that train-wreck later...'_ I thought, lowering my hands and slipping them behind me. Lewis looked at Rikki and I.

"Emma and I were down below a few minutes ago - it started flooding, we had to get out of there. There's a huge split in the hull; we're sinking." He said. There was an awkward pause and Emma finally said what we were all thinking.

"Zane is still down there. We have to go get him; we can't just leave him down there."

"Even though he probably deserves it," Lewis muttered, smirking. We all looked at him and I caught an embarrassed blush creep onto his face, "Right, sorry. Harsh, I guess."

"But if any of us go down there we're stuck with tails, and then we're not exactly any good in getting out of here even with tails." Rikki groaned, frustrated. Lewis picked his head up.

"I'll go get him." I heard him say. Rikki, Emma and I froze. I knew that they didn't need my empathy skills in order to know that if he went down there for Zane, Zane would more than likely not be coming back up with him. I bit my lip slightly and picked up one of my hands and rested it on Lewis's back, feeling it throb on contact. Lewis's gun was still in its holster that hung around his back, but I had a feeling that it wouldn't stay there for long if Zane said one wrong thing – which, let's face it, was probable.

"Uhh… Lewis, no offense or anything—" Rikki started. We all felt uneasy and she knew what she was getting at: it wouldn't be a great idea to leave Lewis alone with Zane right now.

"Cora! You won't transform unless you're completely covered in saltwater, right? It's not flooded to the ceiling yet; it was just a few feet high when we were down there – you could get him out of there!" Emma said. I paused and picked my head up – she was technically right—

"No way, are you _kidding_?! Emma, Zane wants to _kill_ her; he thinks it'll save Rikki and the rest of you!"

"She's right, Lewis. I have to go get him, he'll drown down there."

"I don't want him to have any chance to touch you, Cora…"

"Too late!" Rikki snarled. I sighed and shut my eyes. It figures. Thanks, Rikki. Way to be discrete.

"What?! What did he do to you?" Lewis put his hands on my shoulders and stepped back a little, quickly letting his eyes rove over me checking for injuries. For a second I cursed him for being so smart and he pulled my arms away from behind my back and in another split second I felt him freeze. I tried hard to keep him calm but I felt the flood of emotions hit him hard. His hands came off of my shoulders and I finally gathered up the nerve to open my eyes in time to see his hands waver around mine before finally picking them up by my forearms, bringing them up closer to his face. He was quiet for a second and his face had gone completely blank and I could feel that his hands were starting to shake. His eyes were fixed down on my hands. I watched his jaw tighten and as his anger grew, I could feel it. This was beyond anything I had felt from Lewis. This was overwhelming.

"Lewis…" I started, but he started shaking his head slowly. In that instant it felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

"He's not getting away with this. He won't. Let him stay down there! He deserves it."

"Lewis, I'm fine – this will heal," I began again and started pulling my arms out of his hands. I took another step closer to him and carefully raised my hands. They might not have been the prettiest sight at the moment, but I needed to calm him down. I tried to hold back a wince as I very gently wrapped my fingers around his arms, "Once we're all out of here we'll never have to think about Zane again if we don't want to. But right now, you need to let me go and get him out of that room before it floods. He won't cause me any trouble." I threw in, although to be honest I had no idea if it was true. I hated lying to Lewis, but I couldn't let Zane die today. He had been badly misguided, but he didn't deserve to die even after what he had done to me. I kept my eyes fixed on Lewis's, concentrating hard. I could feel him calming down but not by enough to make a difference even _with_ all of my energy focused on the task. He stared back at me and the look in his eyes killed me – sadness, helplessness.

"We can't be what he is, Lewis! We can't bring ourselves to his level." Rikki yelled from behind us. I watched his face carefully and knew that he was struggling, but deep down he knew that letting Zane die was wrong. We didn't want anyone killed, even if that person had tried to kill one of us.

"I need to go do this." I said quietly, staring up at him seriously. I felt the fear flood his body and I felt my mouth twitch down sadly. I didn't want to leave him up here where I wouldn't be able to see him and the thought unnerved me a little, but I reminded myself that I would do this fast: go get Zane and then get right back up here. I watched his face and I could see and feel that he didn't like the idea, "I promise you, Lewis. I'll come back." Lewis was silent for a few more seconds before finally unclenching his jaw enough to speak.

"Please, Cora… Be very, very, very careful. If he tries anything, and I mean anything—" He began. I felt my mouth turn up into a smirk.

"—I'll give him an anchor in the face," I smiled a little more and thankfully he let himself smirk back at me, "I'll be careful. And you, too… please stay in once piece until I can get back to you." I felt my smile falter a little despite my best efforts to keep it. He nodded once and for a second his sweet goofy smile made my cheeks get hot, just the same as it always does.

"I can do that. Be quick, okay?" He said, and then pulled me closer and squeezed me tightly again, "I love you, Cora."

"I love you, too." I smiled up at him, hoping to reassure him that I was all right. I let go of him gently and glanced at Emma and Rikki, giving them a hopeful smile and with one last look I head around the corner through the doorway, making my way back down into the sinking levels of the yacht.

When I reached the stairs leading down to the hallway that Zane was being held in I froze for a second at the top. The yacht was definitely sinking all right, and as I hesitantly stepped down the stairs and into the water I shuddered. It was up to my hip and rising fast. I bit my bottom lip and reached out to grab onto the ceiling pipe to help myself move faster as I moved down the hallway, trying to maneuver my way around the floating debris. My heart beat faster as I got closer to Zane, and further from Lewis. I had a horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn't shake. This wasn't my empathy coming through from someone else's emotions. Something was happening. And it wasn't with a mermaid – I would have been able to see it, I would have been having a vision right now. That was what terrified me. I swallowed quietly and moved down the flooded hallway faster, pushing through the water. The sooner I got to Zane, the faster we could get off of this yacht.

I could hear Zane before I stopped outside the door.

"Help! Is anyone out there?! There's… there's a _lot_ of water in here!"

I bit my lip and lifted one of my hands, pushing it up against the door.

"…Zane? I'm going to get you out of there, just hang on, okay?"

"Rikki?! Is that you?" He called. I sighed and shut my eyes for a second. This poor kid was a wreck. Rikki and I sounded _nothing_ alike – for starters, I'm from _CALIFORNIA._

"…Uh, no." I muttered, unlocking the door from the outside. I groaned a little as I wrapped my hand around the knob and gave it a tug – nothing. I froze for a second and tugged again. Nothing. I decided to try it with my other hand; maybe this one was less wounded? I wrapped my other hand around the knob and pulled as hard as I could. It was painful, but apparently not enough. The door remained closed. I bit my lip and groaned, realizing what was going on. The water level out here was clearly much higher than the level in Zane's closet. As a result, the volume of water out here pressing up against the door from this side was creating a force that was too much to pull it open. I frowned. This was basic physics, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to fix if I hadn't had those freakin' _knives_ through my hands. Scientifically, I could fix this by finding a crowbar and prying a wide enough space under the door to let more water through. If the water levels were evened out, the water on both sides of the door would put an equal amount of pressure on the door and would make it easier to pull open. However, did I have time to find a crowbar? No. Could I even _use_ a crowbar with these hands? Probably not, Cora. Not to mention that by the time Zane's closet filled to match the water out here, it could not only be high enough to give me a tail but also high enough to drown Zane.

I waded back through the water and stood up against the wall on the other side of the hallway, facing the door. The science geek in me sure was doing me a whole world of good. I rolled my eyes and shut them. My heart pounded and I raised my hands and slowly clenched my fingers. After a few seconds, I felt a kind of invisible hold wrap around the door. I bit my lip gently and wrinkled my eyebrows, concentrating hard. I gave the force another second or two to peak in strength.

"Zane, get ready for more water…" I mumbled, and with a rough yank of my hands the steel door ripped away from the wall, the bolts holding it in bursting and sending the door flying down the hall. I felt my eyes bulge for a minute – I had no idea that I had something like _that_ in me. No wonder Denman was afraid of me. The thought made me smirk.

The water, overjoyed to have a new space to fill immediately rushed into the closet engulfing Zane where he sat still tied into the chair, apart from his head and shoulders. I sighed and moved closer to him. He started rambling frantically, angrily, but at the second I couldn't listen and instead focused on trying to untie him under the water as fast as I possibly could. The water had risen to my waist.

Then something happened that I had not anticipated. The minute I had the very last knot undone Zane flew up out of his seat, standing up in the water. Before I even saw him, I could feel his radiating anger making its home in my midsection again. I looked up into his face and for a moment I felt my heart stop. I had no time to react before I felt his hands between my neck and shoulders roughly forcing me out of the closet and slamming me into the wall on the other side of the hallway.

"It's you! Denman said that as long as you were still alive, Rikki and her friends were fair game!" He screamed. I felt his fingers digging into my shoulder and winced. I couldn't believe the complete turnaround he'd made in just 20 minutes since the last time I had seen him. But I didn't have time for the patience-game right now. I needed to get back up to Lewis, to the girls, and as much as I wanted Zane to survive I couldn't have him hold us up any longer.

"Newsflash, Zane: I _am_ Rikki's friend, now!" I screamed. I ground my teeth together a little bit. I don't ever get this mad, but at this point? I was pretty sick and tired of people trying to kill me. Without moving my hands Zane was thrown off of me and back across the hall up against the opposite wall. I watched him and he stared back at me, his face stunned. The rage from him that I had been feeling melted away and I could tell that he was thinking about what I had just said even though I didn't expect it to get entirely through to him at this point – I just knew that we needed to move, "Come on, we've got to go…" I started, pushing through the water past him and leading the way back towards the stairs, once again using the ceiling pipe to pull myself along faster. I heard him moving along behind me and sighed thankfully when we reached the stairs. I pulled myself up the steps quickly, happy to be out of the water tail-free. Zane came up a few seconds after me and we head back down the hallway.

I sighed shakily and I could see the open doorway at the end of the hall that led back out to the deck. Just a few more yards and I would be able to see Lewis and my friends. But for some reason, that dread in the center of my gut still wouldn't subside even after Zane had tried attacking me. My face fell and I began to panic and walked a little faster. As we got closer I could hear voices – loud voices, angrily screaming back and forth on the deck. _Fighting_. My throat felt tight and dry. I could hear Emma and Lewis, and I could hear Denman barking orders at her assistant.

Suddenly it felt like time had slowed down. I heard the familiar blast of a single gunshot and in that instant I felt indescribable pain rip through my side and scorching heat flooded my chest. I gasped and shut my eyes, stumbling and reaching out to catch myself on the wall.

No. No, no… it was too familiar, this pain. This had happened before. I was panting hard but quickly forced my eyes open and looked down at myself. Just as I had feared, no bullet had pierced me. I squeezed my eyes shut again and momentarily forced myself into the minds of Rikki, Emma and Cleo. Feeling no pain from any of the girls' minds I forced myself out of the visions and the overwhelming dread, panic and fear that filled my body almost knocked me over. They were fine, all three of them. This could only mean one thing. I staggered forward and when I reached the open doorway my eyes darted around frantically, looking for Lewis. I took one step out onto the deck and my body froze.

Lewis was lying propped up against the side of the yacht on our side of the fire with Emma crouched at his side, a dark red stain slowly spreading across the side of his jacket.


	13. Unbreakable

**A/N**: _**WARNING**_: This will be a very heavy chapter. There will be blood; if you're disturbed by it please be aware that it is in fact mentioned several times!

Our friends have escaped but Lewis is in bad condition. What happens when the gang realizes that they won't make it to the hospital in time? Read, enjoy, and review! Take care, everyone.

-

"_Denman there's no point in trying to save this thing, we've gotta get off of it!"_

"_You're mot moving an inch, Eric! Get down there and help me fix this!"_

"_But Linda we're about to—"_

"_NOW, Eric! The kid is as good as dead, they don't have anywhere to go! Now come on!"_

The voices sounded like they were coming from a million miles away, despite them coming from just a few yards away on the other side of Rikki's fire. Cora heard nothing as Dr. Denman and Eric hurried out of the rain and back down below the deck of the rapidly sinking yacht, joining John in the lost cause of trying to mend the crack. She stepped out onto the deck and for the moment, she didn't care about the rain or the fact that the yacht was about to capsize. For the moment, she was deaf. For the moment she couldn't think of the indescribable pain wracking her body and only barely realized that her legs were carrying her rapidly towards Lewis.

Emma, Cleo and Rikki, though terrified at the fact that their friend had just been shot, exchanged a nervous glance – Cora was about to step directly out into the rain. Rikki reached out a hand to try to grab her before the rain hit her, only to find that Cora's hold was working in reverse now – keeping anyone from getting close to her. She kept walking quickly, not even noticing her friends as if she were in a trance. Rikki glanced quickly at Cleo and Cleo focused hard, tightening her fingers just in time to extend her push against the water around Cora, enveloping her friend in a rainless dome.

Cora dropped to her knees next to Lewis and Emma backed up slightly, giving her some room. Cora could barely feel it but she knew that her entire body was shaking. She raised her still bleeding hands and very carefully reached for the bottom of Lewis's shirt and tugged it up, and when her eyes met the wound a disorienting throb of pain flooded her entire midsection. The bullet had gone straight through the front of Lewis's side, and the wound bled in both the front and the back. Her hands clenched involuntarily over and over again and she felt her breathing start to come in ragged pants. She let her hands flutter helplessly around the wound, terrified to touch him and searching desperately and unsuccessfully for something she could do. Her side burned painfully as her body immediately and automatically absorbed his pain and her body tensed and convulsed hard over and over again. Lewis's eyes opened groggily, conscious not only of the fact that he wasn't feeling pain from the wound anymore, but also conscious of _why_. His eyes and drew up to hers and he shook his head once as if silently telling her to stop. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes any second as she stared back at him but she did not move or stop as the storm raged around them.

It felt like days that she sat watching over him, though it was only a couple of seconds. An ominous creaking and loud cracking roared up from under them – the yacht was splitting as it sank. The sound did not make her flinch nor did she turn around as she spoke to her friends.

"He needs a hospital." Her voice was flat but they could all see that her words were true. In another instant Nate made his way over and very carefully helped Lewis to stand up and walked with him to the side of the yacht where he and Cleo had secured the lifeboat just a minute or so earlier.

Rikki watched nervously as Nate helped Lewis onto the boat and laid him down. The storm was letting up but the yacht was still going down, and fast. This was bad, but she was determined to not let it get worse. Her blue eyes darted around quickly and she made some fast decisions.

"Cleo, Emma. You guys go ahead and we'll meet you at the beach. I'm going to stick with these guys and keep an eye on Zane." She said quickly. Emma and Cleo exchanged worried glances but nodded and quickly hurried to the side of the yacht, diving into the choppy water. Rikki immediately grabbed Zane's arm and roughly shoved him in the direction of the lifeboat, and he stumbled a little before resigning and climbing in. She followed, realizing that Cora had already made it into the boat. Rikki worriedly watched the scene as Nate started the motor and pulled the boat away from the doomed yacht. She took one final glance at the yacht as she watched the deck that they had just been standing on split and felt anger build in her chest. As they pulled away, Rikki clenched her fingers once hard sending a final bolt of lightning crashing down on the vessel right before it went under. It was only a matter of seconds before the rainwater transformed her and she sighed, turning her attention back to her friends. She bit her lip. Lewis was losing a lot of blood, regardless of the fact that he wasn't able to feel it. She frowned sadly as the lifeboat sped forward in the rain, sitting by helplessly.

"Hang in there for us, McCartney…" Rikki muttered quietly, wringing her hands slightly. It was then that she felt a hand rest on top of hers and she looked up to see that the hand belonged to Zane. She smoldered, cutting her eyes sharply at him and clenched her fingers, burning him and causing him to draw his hand away quickly. Her eyes flicked back to Lewis and Cora, who hovered over him quietly. The sight before her made Rikki even more uneasy and she focused on the girl's face, concerned.

Cora hovered silently over Lewis, holding herself up on her arms with her tail extended behind her. The rain had already soaked through her hair, which now hung to one side of her face, dripping to the floor of boat. To those around her, she appeared to be in some sort of strange, deep and unbreakable trance. Aside from the rampant trembling, she was completely still. Her jaw was tight and tears threatened to fall from her eyes, but they did not. She stared down at Lewis's injury hard; so, she'd stopped him from feeling any pain, but the pain was not what would kill him and so it was not good enough. Her head was throbbing and buzzing so loudly that she felt like her body was short-circuiting; her breathing came in pants and every inch of her body was aching badly, but it still wasn't enough. She was useless now, and another person she loved was going to slip away at her fault.

Suddenly something bigger than her took over. Her mind completely shut down and she stopped thinking, her body moving on its own accord. One of her battered hands rose slightly and came to rest on Lewis's chest on top of the injury. The fingers surrounding it twitched into a small clench on their own and her eyes never moved away. However, after a moment or two something strange began to happen and there was a peculiar warmth in the front of Cora's side; but as the seconds passed, the warmth quickly progressed to a burning excruciating heat that felt like it was ripping right through her skin. She did not move, but her eyes closed tightly and her breathing now came in hard heaving gasps. Her fingers clenched on their own a little harder and she ground her teeth together as her body continued to shaking a little. The burning pain in her side was crushing and felt like it was getting deeper, but she remained frozen in place. Consciously, Cora had no idea what she was doing but from the outside it couldn't have been clearer.

Rikki and Zane watched the scene in wide-eyed shock. The bleeding wound at the front of Lewis's chest was very slowly stitching together and disappearing; at the same time, however, there was a small identical hole forming at the front of Cora's chest that bled only a little at first, but as the minutes went on it got worse and worse. Zane's fear and confusion read all over him and his skin had gone greenish. Rikki's face had paled to a ghostly white and her mouth dropped open slightly as she watched, and even Nate had noticed that something was wrong and kept glancing back at the scene every few seconds. Rikki gulped slightly, knowing what was going on but not understanding how it was _possible_.

'_It can't be possible, there's no way it's for real… I've gotta be seeing things,'_ She thought, quickly wiping a hand over each of her eyes. Opening them she frowned and her heart beat faster, finding herself met with the exact same sight as before, '_Or not. But_ _this… Her powers are mental only; she can't heal physical problems, just the pain – we've already tried!' _Rikki let out a nervous groan and shook herself out of it. The rain had stopped but the small lifeboat was still quickly speeding forward with the shoreline not too far in the distance so she quickly steam-dried herself, losing her tail. She had to do something as she glanced back towards Cora and Lewis – Lewis was still slipping in and out of consciousness but some of the color had already come back into his face. Cora, on the other hand, still hadn't moved an inch but remained in her trance. Rikki's eyes quickly flicked back and forth between Cora's slowly deepening wound and Lewis's slowly healing one – it was as if she was sucking the injury away from him and letting it manifest in her own body. It _did_ appear to be helping, but there was one big glaring problem – if this went on for much longer, this would undoubtedly kill the girl; and she wasn't showing any signs of stopping. Rikki picked her head up and saw that they were coming up on the beach quickly; she could see Emma and Cleo standing waiting for them. Quickly raising a hand she clenched her fist tightly and within a few seconds, Cora's tail was gone but the girl still hadn't moved.

Nate slowed up the lifeboat as they approached the shallower waters of the shore and Rikki tried reaching out, intending to try to shake Cora out of her trance. However, her arm did not get too far before it reached an invisible barrier – Cora still wasn't letting anyone near her. The boat pulled up onto the sand and Rikki immediately jumped out with Zane following. Cleo and Emma hurried over to Rikki quickly and glanced at Cora.

"How is Lewis holding up? The ambulance is on it's way," Emma began quickly, then she froze, taking immediate note of a noticeable dark red stain that was spreading across the front of Cora's black work shirt. She wasn't sure if she should be more worried about the blood, or the fact that her friend was in some sort of weird trance, "What's the _matter_ with her?!" Emma asked. Rikki bit her lip.

"I'll explain later, but I'd doubt you need three guesses to figure it out," She muttered breathlessly, hearing the ambulance sirens coming closer. Emma's eyes widened with realization, but Rikki spoke before she got the chance to, "We have to get her away from him, though," Rikki held out her arm to stop Emma as she started to move forward to pull Cora away, "Don't bother, I've tried. Her powers _really_ don't want any interruptions, it seems."

"Cora! Come on sweetie, the ambulance is here; Lewis has to go to the hospital now." Cleo called from as close to the girl as she could get, which was still about 5 feet away. Cora's look of concentration faltered little and she picked her head up weakly, and Cleo stumbled forward a little as Cora's security bubble popped. She quickly hurried to the boat and reached out, lifting Cora up and pulling her out of it, standing with her on the sand to its side. The paramedics rushed past the two of them, and Cleo felt her friend flinch in her arms toward Lewis as they picked him up and secured him to a stretcher. Cleo frowned sadly and held the girl in place.

"How long has this man been bleeding?" A female paramedic asked her quickly. Cleo glanced briefly at Rikki before responding.

"15, maybe 20 minutes now."

"What happened to him?" She questioned again, busily strapping a mask onto Lewis's face. Cleo exchanged another nervous glance with Rikki and Emma. She had no idea what to tell this woman! Seeing this, Rikki quickly spoke up.

"Uh, a boating accident during the storm." She said quickly. After all, it wasn't a complete lie. The female paramedic shot the 5 remaining youths a look of complete dismay.

"You must've been out of your _minds_ going out in a storm like that!" The woman exclaimed, helping her crew lift the stretcher and begin to hurriedly wheel it back to the ambulance, "You can meet him at the hospital." And with that, Lewis was put in the back of the vehicle and it took off, sirens blaring once again leaving Rikki, Emma, Cleo, Cora, Nate and Zane standing on the beach.

Cleo felt Cora trying and failing to squirm out of her grip in the direction that the ambulance had just left and furrowed her eyebrows, puzzled; she wasn't holding onto Cora that tightly, and she knew that the girl was usually a lot stronger than that.

"Cora...?" Cleo pulled her arms away from Cora and the girl immediately stumbled from the lack of support but pulled herself up straight again and remained silent. Nate approached Cleo from behind and spoke quietly.

"Uh… I think she needs a doctor, sweetheart." He said. No sooner had the words left his mouth did he and Cleo feel a gentle push nudging them several feet away from where Cora stood completely still with both of her hands pressed firmly against the side of her chest. Rikki sighed, frustrated, from where she stood with Emma and Zane.

"I would say it looks like she doesn't _want_ one." She groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead and briefly shutting her eyes. Cleo glanced worriedly at Rikki, then back up at Nate.

"What are you talking about?!"

"Cleo, sweetie… the blood on her hands isn't Lewis's." Emma said softly, hoping Cleo would get the hint. It took only a second for it to sink in.

"Oh _God_! How can we get help for her if we can't get near her?!" Cleo exclaimed, puzzled. They spoke as if Cora weren't standing among them, but it mattered little to her. Her body may have been with them, but her mind was somewhere else.

Rikki closed her blue eyes briefly and sighed. She may not have been on the best terms with Cora at first, but she understood what the girl had just done. Rikki had watched as an inexplicable supernatural force pulsed through Cora and allowed her body to push into powers that she did not even _have_. She knew that Cora had just absorbed a decent amount of Lewis's injury and as a result was in very, very bad condition. But, she and the Californian had more in common than she had thought. Cora was just as stubborn as Rikki could be, and Rikki knew that no matter how much blood she had lost, Cora wouldn't let _anybody_, even her friends, touch her until Lewis was taken care of. She bit her lip softly: Rikki would have done the same for Zane, once upon a time. She wanted the shared injury to be taken care of just as much as Cleo and Emma did, but if a team of doctors and nurses came at Cora and they were all suddenly and unexplainably shoved away, their secret was in danger. She opened her eyes and after another second of silence, she spoke.

"We have to wait until she's seen him."

"Rikki, she could be _dead_ by the time Lewis is out of surgery…" Nate began, but Rikki quickly cut him off.

"Try for yourself, then. See where _you_ get!" She snapped. Nate frowned slightly and moved to the side of Cleo and tried slowly approaching his co-worker. Once more, he and everyone else were held away by a 5 foot barrier that surrounded Cora, "I told you," She spat, frustrated, and then turned to Cora, "Cora, look… You're hurt, and you know you're hurt – I doubt you care. Whatever, you don't have to. We'll go to the hospital. No one has to touch you until you see Lewis, all right? But you've got to pull back so that we can help you get there." There was a second or two of silence and they could tell by watching her face that Cora was considering it, however she remained completely silent. After another moment, the secure bubble that Cora had in place around herself popped. Rikki let out a sigh of relief and uncrossed her arms, immediately heading to the girl's side, "Thank you. Now, let's go."

-

The waiting room had a stark, cold emotion entirely separate from the dear and anxiousness running through the minds of the people sitting in it. Cora could feel the pulse of both. She sat upright in the chair between Rikki and Emma. Cleo sat across from them and Nate and Zane sat whispering heatedly back and forth next to her.

Aside from a steady trembling that wracked Cora's body every few seconds she remained completely motionless. Lewis had gone into surgery almost 45 minutes earlier, and she had been bleeding slowly but steadily for the past hour. Logically, Cora was conscious of the fact that she was essentially bleeding to death, but she couldn't feel it. Was there pain? Sure, no shortage of it. Was there the culmination of everyone's worry over Lewis taking root in her stomach? Absolutely. But she couldn't move yet; not until she saw him with her own eyes. Her body remained in a trance all its own, with a mission.

When they had gotten to the hospital, Cora grabbed a towel from an unsupervised pile on a shelf and ducked into a bathroom. As quickly as possible, she unbuttoned her work shirt and winced when she realized just how bad the injury was. Moving as if she were a machine, she layered cheap paper towels over the wound and secured them with the towel she'd grabbed on her way in. Putting her shirt back on, she strapped everything down with her shirt's belt and head back out to the waiting room. The hospital staff, seeing that the 5 youths were a hair short of a mess, offered them blankets. Cora enveloped herself in hers to better hide the injury, and made certain to keep her hands tucked inside of it at all times. She sighed and her body shuddered: just a few more minutes.

Emma glanced sideways at Cora every few minutes. She was a little concerned that her friend still hadn't said a word; they had no way of knowing what was happening, or how she was feeling. She didn't dare ask to see the injury herself – Emma couldn't handle blood very well, nor did she think Cora would want any attention drawn to it yet. She sighed quietly, but Nate and Zane's whispers had grown louder and she picked her head up, staring at them.

"Yes it _is_, Nate!"

"Zane… it's not. You're not well, mate, I'm worried…"

"You're supposed to be my best fucking friend and now this?!" Zane stood up out of his chair, attracting the attention of some of the hospital staff , "None of this would have ever happened if it weren't for her ! She only wanted one mermaid and I was doing my job – I did what I had to do!"

Emma sighed and bit her lip upon hearing the dreaded m-word . Zane had gone back and forth between hating Cora and earnestly apologizing to her four times in the past hour. It made little difference; as far as they could all tell, Cora couldn't even hear him and she certainly didn't respond. But this time, his hatred had blown into an outright fit. A tall muscular man wearing hospital scrubs approached him and glanced down at Nate, who remained calmly seated, holding Cleo's hand.

"Excuse me, sir – is everything all right, here?" He questioned, crossing his arms and eying Zane curiously. Nate sighed.

"He's a little wound up…"

"And you all told me she was _evil_?! _You're_ the ones being stupid and selfish; she was going to be fair about it this time! I gave her one mermaid, she didn't touch the rest! D'you have any idea what you could have _done_ ?!" Zane raged, his voice reaching an almost screaming level. People in the hall stopped and watched him curiously. The male nurse that had approached Nate glanced at the rest of them, raising an eyebrow.

"What's he talking about?" He asked. Rikki spoke up immediately before anyone had a chance to even get nervous about Zane's big mouth.

"We've no idea; he keeps harassing us with this nonsense, this man is pretty unbalanced if you know what I mean." She said simply, trying to sound as convincing as possible. The man glanced around at the rest of them who quickly nodded in agreement, and the man pulled a small hand-radio out of his pocket and quickly muttered something into it.

"Yeah, I need security in the Wing E Waiting Room..."

Emma blinked incredulously at Rikki . Sure, it had been true that Zane _was_ unbalanced, and he _was_ causing another scene, and he _did_ need help but she hadn't expected it to happen this way. Her mouth turned up into a slight smirk as everyone but Cora watched security pull Zane away, restraining him by his arms. It was a relief after all the trouble he'd caused, but they couldn't help but feel sadness as well. Zane had been their friend once, despite how badly he'd lost his way. But they could only hope that wherever he was taken would give him the help that he so desperately needed. There was only a lull for another second before Cora's head suddenly pricked up. The others took note of the sudden movement and quickly looked in the same direction that she was looking in. They found themselves met with a small gray-haired man with a kind face, wearing a long white coat. He smiled softly at the group before addressing them.

"I take it that you all must be Mr. McCartney's bunch?" He asked, his voice friendly. The group nodded, staring at the old man intently, "Wonderful. Well, you'll all be happy to know that your friend Lewis's surgery went well. You all must have called just in time. You were lucky; if he had lost any more blood, he probably would have died," Though the man sounded cheerful, Cora felt the throbbing in her midsection pulse, burning. She let her eyes close a little, but opened them immediately when the man began to speak again, "He's resting comfortably in a room, but he should be awake any time now. I can start letting you in to see him if you'd like – one by one of course, we can't overwhelm him just yet." He smiled at them, glancing around at the 5 youths. Cora immediately started pushing herself out of her seat. Seeing that she was having some trouble, Emma reached for her and gently helped to pull her friend into a standing position. Cora's mouth twitched into a weak smile, silently thanking Emma and pulled the blanket tighter around herself, concealing her injuries further, "Ah, I take it you're first, then, miss?" The old man chuckled quietly. Cora twitched a grateful smile at him and he led her out of the waiting room, leaving Emma, Rikki, and Cleo exchanging nervous glances with one another in their wake.

As the seconds passed it was getting harder and harder to walk like a normal person. But Lewis was okay, Cora reminded herself. He was okay and just knowing that was already making her forget about the pain. They reached the open door of Lewis's room and Cora stared at him laying in bed, feeling herself fall into a comforting daze again. The doctor's voice shook her out of her reverie.

"Are you all right, dear? You look a little sick," He inquired, tilting his head and staring at her curiously. Cora quickly nodded – she was so _close_, she couldn't take an interruption now, "You're sure?" Another fast nod. She felt her eyes slip back to Lewis – so, _so _close. "All right, then. Be gentle with him, and no more boating trips in the middle of hurricanes, yeah?" The man warned with a warm smile. Cora nodded again, returning the smile, and in another second the doctor was gone, leaving her standing in the open doorway alone. She held onto the door-frame for support as she made her way into the room, heading for the guest-chair. Her adrenaline was tapping out fast, but she used what was left of it to use her telekinesis to push the chair closer the Lewis's bed. She smiled lazily as she sat down in it and pulled the blanket a little tighter around herself as she watched over him; she was glad that she had it now, she was beginning to get cold.

Only a minute or so past before Lewis started stirring. Her head pricked up attentively and her body automatically leaned forward in the chair, making her wince a little.

_'Oh, nice one. Forget about the _hole in your chest_ already? Jesus Christ almighty, Cora...' _She ridiculed herself, frowning slightly and easing herself forward more carefully this time. In another few seconds, Lewis's eyes slid open and she beamed tiredly: he was all right. It took him a moment for him to realize where he was, but as he did he opened his eyes further and picked his arms up slightly, moving as if he were about to try to push himself up in bed. Cora stood up quickly, cursing herself again and reached out with her powers, gently holding him in place and helping him lean back against the pillows again. He realized he wasn't alone and his eyes quickly found her.

"Cora!" A tired smile of relief touched his lips. It was contagious, and she smiled back.

"You shouldn't be moving yet." She said quietly, leaning down very carefully to kiss his cheek, almost as if she were afraid to break him. Her voice cracked a little from lack of use, and she very carefully sat on the edge of the bed to his side, watching over him silently. She very carefully and lightly rested her hand on top of his through the blanket that she had wrapped around her, intent on making him as comfortable as possible – and that certainly didn't include letting him see her hands.

Lewis leaned back on the pillow and sighed contently, glancing around the room. He let his mind travel back to the events that had gotten him there, and his smile began to falter.

"Cora... What happened? Where's Denman, and her men? What ever happened to Zane? And everyone else..." Lewis had begun to panic a little and understandably so, and as his panic heightened Cora could feel it. However, she had to keep him from getting too upset. His doctor had told her to be gentle with him and she wasn't going to screw up already; she needed to keep him calm.

"Shh, Lewis... Everybody is okay – everyone who matters, anyway," She added with a smirk, "Denman is gone, her men too. Everyone else is out there in the waiting room, I promise." She smiled tiredly but reassuringly, glad when she felt his nerves ease a little.

It didn't last long. After a few seconds, she watched realization work its way onto his face as he slowly remembered the night's events. His eyes slipped down to where her hand rested on top of his. Cora felt a sudden twinge in her stomach and before she had time to stop him, Lewis pushed the blanket out of the way and grabbed a hold of her wrist, pulling her hand out into the open. The twinge in her stomach escalated into a full blown lurch so powerful that she saw dots in front of her eyes in less than a second.

"Why... _why_ are your hands still—" He began to speak, his own voice cracking as it got louder. His heart-rate machine started beeping faster, and between the pain coursing through her and the added stress from the machine, Cora was dizzy: she had to calm him down, and touching his hand wasn't enough.

"No, Lewis... it's okay... It'll get fixed in a little while..." She began, dazedly looking him over and trying to figure out what she could do. She was half terrified to touch him, but she couldn't let him get so worked up this soon after his surgery. She gently pulled her arm out of his grip and leaned forward, shutting her eyes in concentration as she very carefully wrapped her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him. It took a few seconds but Cora sighed shakily as she felt him begin to calm down in response to her powers: it had worked. As if the success were a cue, she felt her body start to go limp against Lewis. She tried hard to fight it, to keep the pressure of her body weight off of his chest but it was growing more and more difficult with each passing second. She squeezed her eyes shut, frustrated with herself as she realized that as the injury was catching up with her, the trance of her Protection was wearing off quickly. She clenched her jaw, determined; she could just hold out a little longer, just until he was resting again...

But through the daze of his medication, Lewis knew this didn't feel right. This wasn't the way that Cora usually held him; something was off. He creased his eyebrows, puzzled as he felt her body tense and go limp every few seconds, and even as her muscles relaxed there was still something wrong – a strange trembling. After almost a full minute he felt her pull away, and with the sudden draft came something else: there was a odd warm wetness against his chest. For a moment he wondered if he had managed to rip his stitches already, but when he glanced down he froze. There was a large bloodstain against the front of his hospital gown: it was on the opposite side of body from his injury. His eyes slowly cast back up to Cora, who remained seated on the edge of his bed, but her eyes were closed. Her skin had paled considerably from the way he had seen it the previous day, before this whole mess erupted. He felt his chest turn to ice as he began to put the pieces together in his clouded thoughts, and he very carefully reached out, pulling the blanket away from her body and letting it drop to the floor. The blood hadn't come from his own wound.

"Cora...?" His voice creaked as he immediately groped around for the nurse-alert button on the side of his bed. He pressed it repeatedly and gulped. A sleepy half-smirk played across her lips but she did not open her eyes.

"Hmm...?"

"Oh my God! Miss, you get away from him this _instant_!" A team of nurses ran into the room in response to Lewis's alert call. Seeing the blood on his gown and only able to see Cora's back, they charged the bed and one of the larger female nurses pulled Cora up out of her sitting position. Lewis groaned and sat up straight instantly in a panic.

"No, you've got it wrong, she didn't hurt me! _She_ needs a doctor, _now_!" He yelled, hoping the nurse would let up her grip on Cora. Upon hearing him, the still suspicious nurses turned Cora to face them and their faces relaxed into quiet shock.

"Oh my goodness... how did she even get _in_ here?!" One young nurse asked, panic-stricken and ran out of the room, returning seconds later with an empty gurney.

"She's got her ways, I'm sure..." Lewis muttered under his breath. He pushed himself up a little higher in the bed, watching the scene horror-stricken as his girlfriend's legs gave way from under her and she collapsed in the arms of the nurse that had pulled her away. Within a few seconds the team of four nurses had laid the girl on the gurney.

As darkness started to set in, Cora silently wished that she had been able to hold out until Lewis had gone back to sleep. Her mind held onto him for as long as possible, but once the nurses pushed the gurney through the door and out of Lewis's room, the adrenaline that had been the only thing keeping her awake burst like a balloon and everything around her went black.

-

**A/N**: What happens to Cora? And what bad news does Emma get from the doctor? Review for chapter 14, take care everyone.


	14. Secrets and Coverups

**A/N**: WARNING – sad themes ahead.

When Cora goes into surgery Emma has to pretend to be her cousin – what bad news does she receive? Lewis begins to panic and feels something is wrong, but can't place what it is. Could it be related to the news that Emma has gotten? Read, enjoy, review!

-

"We have to stabilize her; she's lost a lot of blood – she's about to hit a stage IV hemorrhage."

"What _happened_ to this girl?!"

"We don't know – her friends are saying they had a boating accident, she and the other kid got banged up pretty bad."

"This was no boating accident, not like anything I've seen anyhow…" The doctor muttered, creasing his eyebrows as he examined the girl on the table, briefly scanning her body starting at her head. When he reached her hands he muttered, "Something went through both hands; the x-rays show a clean snap in one of the metacarpal bones – something cut straight through it…" He watched as the nurses frantically cut away the bloodied articles of clothes from Cora's body and began a blood transfusion. He raised his eyebrows upon seeing the wound at the front of the girl's chest and paused for a moment, confused, "Gun-shot wound?"

"That's what it looks like, Dr. Miller."

"From the size of this hole, this thing should have gone all the way through! There's no exit wound – have we recovered the bullet yet?!"

"…There wasn't one."

"What do you mean, 'there wasn't one'?!" He exclaimed, speaking more to himself than to the nurse as he quickly began cleaning the still bleeding wound with strong, pungent alcohol, "God, this is strange… Mary, get another surgeon in here to work on her hands. I need to close up this wound - I need stitching wire, _now_." He demanded quietly, holding out his hand as he hovered over the girl on the table. In another second, a nurse had placed the materials in his hand. However, she cleared her throat quietly and spoke up.

"Dr. Miller…"

"What is it?"

"I think we've got another problem…" The nurse trailed off and held up Cora's dark navy jeans that they had just cut off of her. The front of them was covered in a large, fresh bloodstain. The doctor froze a little and sighed sadly, knowing what he was looking at.

"That's not from another injury, is it," He stated. It wasn't a question. He stared down at the young unconscious female and frowned slightly.

"No, sir… It… it looks like she's miscarried from the blood loss."

"From the stress on her body from this 'accident' as well. As if she hadn't been through enough," He mumbled softly, beginning the complicated process of stitching up the gun-shot wound, carefully wiping the wound between stitches with the alcohol, "Have the tests run and find out how far along she was. We'll do all we can here and then we'll have to inform her family when she's out of surgery," He ordered, and within another second the nurse was off on her task and the second surgeon had entered the room and began prepping the young girl's hands. The doctor sighed sadly, watching the other surgeon for a brief moment before returning to his own task, glancing at the unresponsive girl's face, then letting his eyes trail to her hands, strange chest-wound and then down at her rather flat stomach. It was evident at first glance that she couldn't have been very far along, but after all she'd been through – _wherever_ she'd been – to live through it and then lose a child was heartbreaking; but then again, he had to wonder if the girl had even known that she was pregnant in the first place. His lips twitched into a sad frown beneath his mask and he continued stitching the wound carefully, mumbling softly, "Poor kid… What _happened_ to you out there?"

-

_**Emma**_

"How long has it been?"

I checked my watch before replying. I sighed a little when I realized the time-lapse.

"It's going on almost two hours, now, Lewis." I said quietly from the chair I had pulled up next to his bed. Rikki was in here with me; Nate and Cleo had gone to grab coffee while they waited outside. I sank back into the chair, exhausted. I was grateful that most of us managed to escape that yacht unscathed, but I knew I looked like a mess anyway. At this point, even _I_ didn't care, and while I was glad that we'd gotten Lewis to the hospital in time, now we had another friend to worry for.

"Something doesn't feel right. There's something wrong; it shouldn't have taken this long…" Lewis muttered. At his insistence, we had helped him sit up in his bed. However, we'd tried and failed at getting him to rest, but we had known that we would. At this point, we were doing about all we could to keep him in the bed so that he wouldn't rip his stitches out. But even I had to admit that something felt wrong. I glanced at Rikki, who looked just as nervous as I felt: the feeling was mutual after all.

"Try to relax. I'm sure she's fine and we'll get news any minute," I gave him a reassuring smile and leaned forward in my chair a little. I was hoping to calm him down even a little bit – having Cora's empathy ability would be a big help right now – but the way that I felt inside was making it hard. He hardly glanced at me anyway; his eyes were glued to the open doorway.

After another minute, Cleo appeared quickly in the doorway.

"Guys, Cora's doctor's coming out – come on!" She squeaked, whispering almost as if no one was supposed to hear her, then was gone. I looked at Rikki, who looked back at me and then at Lewis who looked like he had every intention of trying to get out of bed. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rikki's voice cut me off before I even had the chance.

"You're not going anywhere, McCartney – we'll tell you everything, promise. Besides, you've only got your hospital gown and let's be frank; I _never_ want to see what's hidden under those sheets." She grumbled, sliding out of her perch by the windowsill and stalking towards the door. I smirked a little and watched Lewis's face turn bright red.

"Don't worry, Lewis. We'll be back." I smiled politely and tried to stifle a laugh as Rikki and I left the room. Her comment had lifted my spirit a bit, but the second we reached the waiting room I felt my heart start to throb again. We sat down in our chairs, joining Cleo and Nate and after a few seconds a tall middle-aged man in scrubs and a white jacket joined us.

"Hello – I'm assuming you must be Cora's friends?" He asked us. We nodded.

"That's us," Cleo began, "Is she all right?" When she asked, I immediately tried to read the doctor's reaction. It's a habit, wanting to see if I'm right or not as soon as possible, but something really _did_ feel wrong and I knew now that I wasn't the only one who could feel it. I saw him sigh a little, but he pushed a smile onto his face: he _pushed_. Something _is_ up.

"Well, it's nice to see you all here for both of your friends. I'm Dr. Miller; I'm your friend Cora's primary physician. Cora…" He trailed off for a second and I could tell that he was trying to find words. This made me even _more_ nervous than I already was, "She was in very bad shape and it will be some time before she recovers. When we got her into surgery she was on the bordering on a Class IV hemorrhage; that means we would have lost her in as little as another minute or two. I don't know where you all were or what kind of accident this was – I don't even understand how she managed to get here alive," He went on, and it was clear from his voice that he was confused and even a little upset, "She's in recovery now, but we can't let any visitors in for quite some time. We'll let you know as soon as we put her into a room in the intensive care unit," He paused and looked at us; I looked around at everyone's faces and the look on each of them was the same; guilt, worry. But then he spoke again, "There are matters that should be discussed with her family – have you contacted them?"

Uh-oh. I shot a quick look at Cleo and Rikki; if we told him the truth, it would sound even worse – 'oh, sorry doctor, her entire family is _dead_. Also, we can't really tell you how she got those injuries _or_ where we were. Whoops!' _Definitely_ out of the question. Before I even realized what I was doing, I quickly stood up, earning a few sets of raised eyebrows from my friends. I gave them a discreet look and looked up at Dr. Miller.

"She's my cousin." I blurted out quickly. Dr. Miller looked surprised, and rightfully so. I paused for a second. "She's adopted." I added. I really hoped that I was a better liar than I thought, but Dr. Miller nodded and led me down the hall to another empty waiting room.

"Miss…"

"Emma." I said. Just in case, I didn't want to give my last name. He seemed to accept it and nodded.

"All right then, Emma. Look… I know that something weird is going on. I've seen about a thousand gunshot wounds in my 20 years as a doctor – Cora was shot, I have no doubt in my mind. But, the hole only goes about two-thirds of the way through her chest – the bullet never exited, and yet there _was_ no bullet to remove. There is no way you all could have removed it on your own, and I _know_ that. It's quite apparent to me that there is a reason you all aren't telling us the whole story, and we cannot force you to; however, if you and your friends are in trouble then I'm urging you to contact the police. Somebody _shot and stabbed_ your cousin and your other friend. To be perfectly honest, when I said she would have been dead in a minute or so, the truth was that she should have been dead already – I have no _idea_ how she survived. I don't know what happened out there, but… if the police need to be involved, I sincerely hope that you…" He trailed off. I gulped a little. He did know something strange was going on, but he thankfully wasn't pressing for more.

"It's being taken care of, Dr. Miller."

"As long as you're certain that it is…" He started, and then his face went so stony that it made my chest tighten and I instantly got nervous again, "There's more. Emma, I'm sorry to tell you, but… Cora miscarried during her surgery. She lost a lot of blood; her body had been through a lot and her internal systems had begun to shut down. I'm sorry to drop this on you, but please understand that it's really better in situations like this that a family member delivers the news to the mother."

I froze and immediately felt every ounce of color drain from my face. Had I heard him correctly? I couldn't believe what I had thought that I'd heard, but the instinct in my gut that had known something was wrong was screaming that this man was telling me the truth; that this was what we had been feeling uneasy about. I felt a little dizzy and my chest felt tight; two blows hit me at once, and the surprise and the sadness were overwhelming. Not only had I just found out that Cora had been pregnant, but she'd lost the baby, too?

"Cora… Cora was _pregnant_? What… _how_… How long?!"

"I'm so sorry, dear; she was. And not very far along, only about 6 or 7 weeks now."

"Oh… oh my _god_..."

"I don't know if she's got a boyfriend or not who you think may have been the father, but you may want to contact him as well when you contact the rest of your family. I'm sorry for your loss; I'll have someone come and let you know as soon as we can let you in to see your cousin."

I barely even felt myself nod, but in another second Dr. Miller was gone again and I was left sitting in the empty waiting room alone. I stared straight ahead and realized my hands were shaking a little bit. My mind was moving in about a million different directions. What was I supposed to _do_? What was I supposed to _say _to the others, and more over, what was I going to say to _Cora and Lewis_?! I couldn't even imagine what would happen. I hadn't had any idea that Cora was pregnant and I knew that none of the others knew either. Those kinds of secrets _don't get kept_ among us! I immediately wondered if Lewis had known, and then something that made my heart jump sadly clicked in my mind: had _Cora_ even known? I thought back to a few hours earlier when she and Rikki had come back to shore on the lifeboat with Lewis, Nate and Zane. When I had first seen her it was clear that something was wrong, but it wasn't until Rikki explained what she had seen on our way to the hospital that I fully understood – Cora had sucked Lewis's injury away from him and taken it into herself. I gulped quietly, but thought hard. I knew that Cora loved Lewis and would do anything for him, as this proved, but there was no way that she would put her own child at risk by giving herself an injury like that. I felt my body shudder hard and I bit my lip as I realized what this meant: she _hadn't_ known she was pregnant.

The back of my hand swept across my eyes before I even realized that I had been crying. This was horrible. The responsible side of me considered telling her, but inside I had already resolved what to do: I wouldn't mention the miscarriage. Finding out about this would literally kill her, I have not one ounce of doubt in my mind, and we couldn't lose her after all of this. I pursed my lips together and unclenched my hands, standing up. This would be a secret that I would have to hold on to; I couldn't risk letting the others know. I sighed and wiped my eyes again, pulling myself together and returned to my friends.

_**Lewis**_

It feels like it's been _way_ too long since the girls left the room to go hear from Cora's doctor. I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong – call me a pessimist, but it just didn't feel right and I started to feel myself panic.

I frowned and pushed myself up a little higher in the bed, trying to peek out into the hallway – bad idea. The second I leaned forward and inch I could feel the pain start to jab into my back.

"Gah…" Frustrated, I sat back but lifted my head every few seconds impatiently. The medicine they had given me for the pain didn't eliminate it entirely, but thankfully the injury was really only giving me problems when I moved. I sighed and felt my jaw clench and my throat immediately went dry when I realized the reason why I could feel the pain from it all of a sudden, whereas when I'd woken up, I couldn't; why the shot that had gone all the way through my chest and gone out through my back was now only a few inches deep – why I was still _alive_. I let out another frustrated groan. I wish I could have stopped her. I couldn't remember much, but I remembered the incredible relief I felt after I had been shot when the pain was suddenly gone. I remembered looking up and seeing Cora staring down at me, and I had immediately known where the pain had gone. At the time I had wanted to scream for her to stop, but my body hadn't had the energy left for the words. I had tried shaking my head, but I just remember her watching me, not moving, not speaking. Everything had gone black and I couldn't see, but I remembered the strange sensation of the fresh wound slowly stitching itself together layer by layer. I hadn't had any idea of what that was at the time, but a few hours ago when I had woken up and found Cora bleeding I _knew_ what had happened: the girl I loved was bleeding to death for me. My jaw clenched again. I couldn't lose her; not again.

It had been several minutes now and even though I could see them down the hall, they were too far for me to hear what the doctor was saying. I had seen him lead Emma even further down the hall a minute or so ago, but she was back now – he was gone. My heart was thudding in my chest and my stomach felt like ice – something was wrong, I just knew it. I felt hollow inside, like some huge part of me had been taken away. The feeling terrified me.

I groaned. Come on guys, did you _forget_ about me? I'M STILL HERE, YANNO, just saying… Finally, I saw them start to walk back towards my room. I sat up a little more.

"Is she okay?!" I blurted out before they had even gotten through the door. I saw Emma fidget.

"You really shouldn't be sitting up like that Lewis - you're going to rip your stitches out, then you'll be stuck here even longer." She muttered; ever the responsible one. I ignored her, but looked at her face – she looked nervous, which made _me_ nervous. Then I looked around at everyone else's expressions, and everyone else looked relieved. I brushed off my concern with Emma's look and looked at Cleo, knowing that my best friend would give me answers.

"She made it out of surgery and they put her in recovery for right now," She started. I sat up a little more but she started talking again, "But, they're not letting anyone in to see her just yet – not until they put her in an ICU room."

I paused. Something still felt very, very wrong, and I had the distinct feeling that I wasn't being told everything. I looked around at everyone and then I remembered that the doctor had taken Emma somewhere.

"Emma! What did her doctor say to you?"

"Um… I told him I was her cousin. He told me that I should contact the rest of her family and let them know what had happened. We couldn't tell him that her whole family was dead, it would sound really, really suspicious." She said. She looked at the floor the entire time, and I sighed. If that was it, then that was it. But something still didn't feel right, and I had no idea what it could have been.

"There's one more thing, Lewis…" Cleo started. I picked my head up quickly – maybe this was what I had been waiting for? Rikki immediately crushed my curiosity.

"Cleo called your mom." She said with a smirk, and then hurried out of the room. My eyes bulged.

"_Cleo_, you didn't!" I groaned loudly. I looked up and her face had gone bright red, embarrassed. She opened her mouth to speak but I heard another familiar voice out in the hall before she could.

"Where's my son; what happened to him?!"

Uh oh. _That_ would be mom. I glared daggers up at Cleo and in that second she and everyone else bolted out of the room. Great. Not that I don't love her, but now I had to deal with mom freaking out…

Best day ever.

-

My mom finally left after I managed to convince her that I was really going to be fine… even though it took about 6 or 7 hours. It was a pretty elaborate cover-story, but she seemed to buy it. Apparently I seem like the type who would go fishing no matter what, even during a hurricane, and get myself maimed as a result. While I don't know if that's necessarily a desirable trait, it kept mom from knowing the truth.

She freaked out _again_ once she learned that Cora was also in the hospital and in much worse condition than I was, of course nobody was about to tell her _why_. However, it proved to be pretty useful in the hours that she was here, because while I still wasn't allowed to get out of bed, mom would go out of the room every hour or so for a few minutes and poke around at the nurses to see if anyone could update her about Cora's condition. I honestly didn't think it would work, but just before she left it paid off!

"They told me they've put her in an ICU room a little while ago, sweetheart; she's resting, but they said she'll be just fine."

I sat up a little higher and my head picked up.

"Really? You're sure?" I felt my eyebrows go up skeptically, "How did you get them to tell you about her?" I asked. Mom smirked and picked up her purse, then planted a huge kiss on my forehead.

"I told them that I was her boyfriend's mom," She shrugged a little and I blinked – why had _that_ worked? I thought hospitals were more secretive about patients than that, not that I was complaining… "I'll be back tomorrow, sweetheart. Get some rest all right? I love you!"

"Sure, mom. See you tomorrow – love ya." I replied, and in another minute she had left the room.

I sat there for a minute by myself, thinking. I knew that no one was allowed to see Cora yet, but the gears in my head had already started turning. I knew that she had to be in a lot of pain and that alone killed me to know; it was definitely contributing to the hollow feeling I'd had all day. But hearing that she was all right and would be fine was helping me a little. I was sad, but felt a smirk creep onto my face anyway: I might not have had any powers that could take her pain away or take back the wound that she had taken from me – though I wish I did – but I did know of one thing that _did_ help her with pain.

_Water_.

I began to put my idea together in my head quickly, but I would need the help of Cleo, Emma, Rikki, Nate and Ash to keep Cora's nurses distracted for a little while. I sighed and cursed Linda Denman for what she had done to us. A part of me was a little nervous that she hadn't died; she was like a human cockroach that couldn't be killed. There would be time to worry about that bitch soon enough, but I couldn't worry too much about her at this second. If she was alive, I hoped that wherever she was, she was having the most miserable experience that a person could have. God knows she would deserve it. And if she were dead, well then, I hoped that she was burning in hell.

I let my eyes slip over to the clock on the wall. It was 8:30 at night and visiting hours were over, so my friends would have been gone by now. I smirked a little, resolved. I didn't have magic, but I was going help in the best way that I knew how.

And all I had to do was wait until the morning.

-

**A/N**: Can Emma keep her secret or does the burden of it get to be too much? Have Dr. Denman and her men survived the split of the yacht? Find out in chapter 15! Until then, review and take care everyone.


	15. Start Living

**A/N: **Here it is – the final chapter of "Full Moon Rising." I hope that everyone really enjoys it, let me know what you think! Take care, everybody and Happy Holidays! : ]

-

_**Cora**_

They were the strangest visions I had ever had, but each one flashed so quickly that they were gone before I was even able to really see what they were. Did this mean that I was _dead_? There were things that I was able to recognize, and some that I didn't understand. Quick snippets of my entire life were flickering by that seemed to be going backwards. I felt the weight of something in my arms and the instant I looked down to see that it was an infant, he was gone. I felt my heard thud happily and felt a dull pain in my lower stomach for the split second that image lasted. I saw a television screen with a fuzzy group photo of a bunch of guys I don't think I recognized, but it was so fast that I couldn't be sure. I saw Lewis, awake and alert in his hospital bed as I had just seen him. I saw Dr. Denman barking orders to her lackeys on her yacht. I saw Emma on one of our jogs a few weeks ago. Zane, the night he had approached me in the alley. Rikki and Cleo bickering about something, Nate at the restaurant, Max in his workshop before he had died. Then I saw my sister, and my parents.

Yeah… I was more than likely dead. I'd heard that before you die sometimes your life flashes before your eyes, but some of the things I had seen I definitely didn't remember, like the brief image of the tiny fidgeting baby in my arms. I had held babies a million times, but never a brand-new-newborn like he had been, and it had certainly never felt like _that_. Why couldn't the visions have lasted longer? They were gone so fast; my mind felt like it was reaching out to hold onto them only to have them yanked away. I thought that once you were dead, you weren't supposed to feel pain or anything else anymore? As the visions flickered by I could feel happiness, sadness, fear…every emotion I had ever felt; in addition to the fact that it still felt like there was a fire burning through my chest. In fact, both the emotions and the pain seemed to be getting stronger and stronger by the second. They were so strong that they were actually overpowering the visions now, which had now begun to blur into meaningless blurs of bright color in my head.

I felt my breathing start to come harder, which was making the burning in my chest worse. I tried to stop it, to calm it down but it wouldn't come. The bright colors were fading fast now, and everything was becoming dark again. The voices and sounds from the visions on the other hand just kept getting louder and louder. I was breathing so hard that it felt like if I wasn't dead already, then I _would_ be soon. The voices and noises were so loud now that it felt like I was suffocating; drowning, which was unnerving for someone who had been able to breathe underwater for nearly 6 years. I panted hard, my chest lighting on fire every time I inhaled and exhaled and every breath got more difficult.

Suddenly, my eyes opened. My chest was still burning and I found myself in darkness. But this was a different kind of darkness than the one I'd just left. My eyes began to adjust to it; to make out shapes around me. I was still panting and I was really hot, like I had been sweating. I lifted my head a little bit and saw light coming in through a door to my left – I was in a room. I blinked and looked down. I was lying down and I could see bright white blankets in the dim room. I was in a room in a bed. Then I saw the IVs on either side of the bed and noticed the white hospital bracelet on my wrist: I was alive, and I was in the hospital.

I remembered how I had felt when I had woken up in Max's test pool after my 5 days in Denman's lab. A lot of things were fuzzy to me about those 5 days now, including how I had gotten out, but I had thought that I was dead then, too – but I hadn't been. It felt a lot like this, but the visions I had just had of my own past left me feeling really strange. I moved less than a fraction of an inch – instant pain. I heard myself whimper a little and bit my lip and immediately re-thought _that_ plan.

I adjusted myself and tried to calm my breathing down, succeeding only slightly. The dampness from my sweating was unpleasantly cold and I very slowly moved my arms to tug the blanket up around me a little more. The second I lifted it up I frowned – even in the darkness, I could see the glinting of the tiny, _tiny_ amount of light coming through the door bouncing off of my silver scales. It had been _years_ since I sleep-changed, and even though no one was around to see it, it was still humiliating.

'_Like wetting the freakin' bed for mermaids… ughhhh… Classy, Cora. Real classy.' _

I dropped the blanket and groaned, leaning back on the pillow and idly letting my hand rest on my lower stomach. It felt a little strange, and my mind instantly flashed to Lewis. My body tensed painfully for a split second before I remembered that he was fine and relaxed a little bit. I would worry about getting in to see him again in the morning. My body had suddenly gotten very weak and I was tired again, despite having just woken up. I let my head roll back onto the pillow and felt my eyes slide shut.

-

_**Lewis**_

"You guys will be perfect – just think about all the other people you've tricked over the past few years! I'm not saying _destroy_ anything, just… just give me a diversion." I was practically begging. Mom had been in here first thing in the morning and had only just left, and now my friends were able to come in and visit with me. I had told them about my plan to get Cora into the water and they seemed… concerned.

"He's right - we have pulled off some pretty impressive stuff…" I heard Rikki mutter and saw her smirk. Rikki's smirks never meant anything _good_; she was undoubtedly remembering something bad that she'd done.

"Are you sure about this, Lewis? Did your doctor even give you clearance to get out of bed…?" I heard Cleo ask.

"Positive. It's the only thing that will really help; medicine only does so much, you guys have seen that. And, I'll have ya know that _yes_, I do - as long as I move really, really slowly. I'm stuck here for another night but both my doctor and Cora's have said that if I want to get up to see her, then I could."

They were quiet for a minute and I stared at them expectantly. Emma was fidgeting a little and was standing the furthest away from me, but she spoke first.

"Of course we'll do it, Lewis; whenever you're ready." She said. I caught Rikki and Cleo stare at her in disbelief but all I could think was: victory! If Emma, the panicky one, agreed to it, that meant that the others would too. I sighed with relief and thanked god for my panicky friend.

"Thank you. And, I'm ready now, of course," I felt a triumphant smile spread across my face. Then I remembered something important, "Well. Give me 5 minutes to put some clothes on first," I added. Rikki was the first to bolt out the door, then Emma, then Cleo who shrugged and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

-

"All right, how long do you need? Hey, over here, wake up, kid." Rikki asked, snapping her fingers in front of my face. We were standing outside of Cora's room now and even though I knew I needed to explain myself to them in order to be even remotely successful, all I really wanted to do was just get in there and see that she was really okay. I sighed and began.

"I'd like it if she could have 20 minutes in the water," I said quickly, but I immediately added, "I know, I know, I'm asking for a lot but it will do so much good, I know it! Please, guys."

The girls stared at me unblinkingly. For a second I thought they were going to back out, but then Emma spoke up.

"You've got it. We can give you an hour with her without interruptions."

"Emma! What are you _doing_, we can't do that! This is the ICU; they'll want to check on her every half-hour, _if_ that!" Rikki spat, staring at her. Emma didn't flinch.

"I'll handle it, Rikki, don't you worry about it. Go on, Lewis. We'll be out here." She said sternly, staring at me. I was curious, but I knew that Emma wouldn't lie about something so serious and I decided not to push my luck. For a minute it looked like she were about to cry, but she was holding herself together so well that it looked like it might have been just because she was angry about what Rikki had said. I nodded gratefully and slipped into the room quickly.

I felt immediate relief when I saw her in the bed. Even though Cora was asleep, she was alive and she looked peaceful. I smiled and wanted to hold her just to prove to myself that she was really there, but I had something to take care of first. I closed the door behind me and went into the room's small bathroom – thankfully, much like I was counting on, the ICU bathrooms had bathtubs and I started running the water in the tub. I knew that Cora was used to cooler water and I would adjust it as she felt better, but for right now I just wanted to ease her into it and that included keeping the water just a little warmer than usual. Thankfully, the tub filled halfway quickly and I shut the water off and returned to the main room. She was still asleep when I reached the bed, but I started very carefully peeling away her bed sheets. She didn't even flinch when they were gone and I just stared down at her for a second. It took a minute for me to convince myself that she wasn't dead. I had thought that I had definitely lost her yesterday, but here she was – breathing, although not very deeply, and already the color had come back into her skin. I looked at her hands and both were securely wrapped up. I smiled and felt more relaxed, but I was conflicted; half afraid to touch her, half just wanting to hold her and not let go.

I leaned down a little bit and very carefully slipped my arms underneath her. I could feel the thick bandages wrapped around her chest and the second I felt them, I felt the wound in my back twinge. I winced a little bit but the pain was fleeting. I lifted her up out of the bed carefully, glancing at the door once just to be safe, and headed towards the bathroom. I felt her stirring a little bit once we got inside, and my heart thudded. I looked down just in time to see her picking her head up very carefully, her eyes immediately flicking around. I smirked when I saw the look on her face – pricelessly confused.

"Hello, there," I said. I couldn't have wiped the stupid embarrassing grin off of my face if I were paid. She looked up at me and I quickly felt her body tense excitedly in my arms and she beamed sleepily. I was happy she was smiling, but she needed to be as still as possible "Hey hey… easy, sweetheart. You've gotta be still," I said, very carefully starting to lower her into the tub full of water. She obeyed and remained still and once she was submerged, I carefully pulled my arms out from under her. It was only a matter of seconds before she transformed. I watched over her silently for another minute. She would never tell me, but I knew that she was in a lot of pain; the same pain that I had been before she'd taken it away – though I'd only dealt with it for a few minutes. Regardless of the fact that she wouldn't tell me everything, I had to ask, "How… how bad does it hurt, Cora?"

She smiled at me a little and I didn't know if it was her smile, her powers, or a combination of both, but I felt a little bit better immediately.

"It's getting better already," She said, and I watched her try to sit up in the tub a little bit more. I was about to tell her not to, but the hopeful look on her face was hard to resist. I gave in and smirked and very carefully kissed her. Satisfied, she eased herself back down into the water, biting her lip slightly through the discomfort. She blinked up at me brightly anyway, "How are you feeling? Will they keep you here too much longer?"

"They said they would discharge me tomorrow. It's not so bad at all thanks to you, and _also_ thanks to you, I can't feel anything from it right now. Even though I'm less than thrilled about what it does to you…"

"Well, I can't switch it off, _or_ make it go backwards - tough luck," She giggled a little, "But… but I don't think that I would even if I could. I'm alive, Lewis, and so are you. And our friends are okay, and that's all that matters," She smiled reassuringly, "And don't worry about me absorbing your pain. The water cancels it out; I can't feel anything right now, so there." Cora beamed triumphantly, and it was contagious. I smiled back and pushed her hair back behind her ear. She was right; everyone who mattered was okay.

In the back of my mind I was wondering about what had become of Denman in her men. But right now, I was going to live in the moment that I had in front of me.

-

_**2 days later, Cora**_

Lewis had been discharged the day after I'd first seen him after I woke up. Despite my efforts to get him to stay at home, he'd been here with me every day for hours. I _think_ he might have even slept here last night, though he won't admit it. For some reason, my doctor was really generous about letting him stay as long as he wanted, regardless of visiting hours. The girls and Lewis's mom had been by as well, to "update me on the outside world." The girls, of course, were giving me updates that were much different than the ones Lewis's mother gave me. There was still no word from, or about Dr. Denman and we were all beginning to get a little bit nervous. Thankfully, I was being discharged later that day and I would be able to get my outside-world-updates first hand.

I squirmed a little and sat up in the bed where Lewis sat with me, perched at the end next to my legs. The television was on in the background but neither of us were really listening to it; Lewis had a fishing magazine and Cleo had given me a book that I was reading. However, one lonely name from a breaking news report immediately caught my attention and my head snapped up: _Denman_.

"…_The bodies of Linda Denman, John Matthews and Eric Vaughn were discovered this morning along Kirra beach…"_

I froze when they flashed pictures of each of our "friends." I felt my stomach turn to ice when the picture of John popped up. There was the fuzzy group picture, now razor sharp, that I had seen in my strange vision the night I'd woken up here. _This_ was what I had seen!

"Cora?" Lewis had immediately stopped reading his magazine and his eyes flicked to the screen. He must have noticed my strange reaction, but I honestly didn't understand what I had seen enough in order to even try to articulate it. I felt my hand brush across my lower stomach and shook my head a little and kept staring at the television screen.

"…_amount of wreckage found with the bodies appears to suggest an accident. The coroner reports that all three victims appeared to have drowned and states that he's found no signs of foul play…"_

The report went on for another few seconds, but I had stopped listening and from the looks of it Lewis had, too. We stared at one another for a moment, and even though I felt like a weirdo for it, I smiled. But so did he. We were flat-out _grinning_. It was only a matter of another minute that Cleo, Emma and Rikki burst through the door.

"Did you guys see?!" Cleo exclaimed, then noticed the television was on and that the reporter had just finished her story. Her face fell a little, "Oh, I guess you did."

"I can't believe it… she's really _dead_." I felt the words come out of my mouth and to some degree I felt bad for the woman; Protector sympathy, no doubt. Denman had been brilliant, although crazy, and even though she had been trying to kill us for months, we hadn't wanted _anyone_ to die on that yacht. However, I shook myself out of it. We hadn't had anything to do with her death; Denman's own stubbornness and insanity had gotten her killed – it was just a shame that two others had to die with her.

"Ah-ah! Hey! I know that tone, Dean, don't you go feeling bad. This psycho had it coming and we had nothing to do with it." Rikki barked at me. I smirked a little bit – she was getting to know me too well, which was something I had never thought I'd be able to say.

"You're absolutely right, Rikki." I smiled and sighed, my body relaxing the most that it had in the past 6 months.

"Good riddance, life-destroying bitch." The remark came from Emma and sounded so dark that even Rikki looked shocked. I tensed a little bit again and felt my hand press down gently on my lower stomach again. Rikki turned to face Emma.

"Emma _Gilbert_! Whoa!" She exclaimed, raising her pale eyebrows with a smile. Emma blushed but she still appeared to be fuming. She tugged at the hem of her shirt and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Sorry." Emma muttered shyly. Cleo pricked her head up and looked around.

"Well… does anyone else think that we should celebrate?" She said, her voice excited. Lewis flipped his magazine shut and grinned.

"I sure as hell do!" He said. I smiled and squirmed up a little higher and I could feel my heart fluttering a little bit. My chest still hurt a lot every time I breathed but I couldn't help breathing a little heavier now. This meant… oh _my god_ this meant so much! This meant that things were different now. This meant that we didn't have to hide anymore; didn't have to worry about being killed every time we left the house. It meant that none of our loved ones would have to be in danger because of us anymore. I felt a wide, relieved and happy grin spread across my face.

"Me too! Let's start by getting me _out_ of here." I giggled a little bit and sighed, calming down finally. I looked up and around at my friends who smiled back at me.

"You've got it!" Emma said with a smile and hurried out of the room.

I sighed happily and leaned back on the pillow, feeling Lewis's hand on top of mine and smiled as I watched Rikki and Cleo smiling at each other and giggling happily. It may have felt morbid, but it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of our chests. There was no more dark lightning-filled cloud hovering above us. No more shadows lurking in our wake wherever were went. It was _over_.

I let my eyes close briefly. Just over 6 months ago I had come here with the intention of helping the girls and Lewis lead Denman astray. And even though things hadn't gone exactly the way that I had thought they would, everything had finally come to a close. Things had come to an end, even though some horribly misguided people had to die in order to end it. Things had come to an end, and that meant one thing:

_We _could start living.

-

**A/N**: The end! I sincerely hope you all liked this series : ] I appreciate everyone who stuck with me here till the end, everyone who read and/or reviewed! Take care everybody, and if you're interested in a third installment of a story with Cora and the H2O gang, read "The Sertori Sister's Secret" by ParadoxTremors. It's a fantastic and original story and I've written a few scenes coming up, so go and show ParadoxTremors some love on his story! : ]


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